Social justice is prominent across Scottish education, underscored by its inclusion as the first professional value of the 2021 General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) Professional Standards. In this paper we question the extent to which conceptual understandings of social justice align with political and professional domains in Scottish…

The recruitment of quality students to teacher training programmes and entering the teaching profession is an important ongoing concern in many countries including the UK. This paper presents the results of a mixed methods study on the motivations for and perceptions of teaching as a career choice from the perspective of student teachers in…

This paper reports the findings on motivational factors influencing teaching as a career choice from a qualitative study carried out in Scotland. Ten students undertaking a PGDE (Professional Graduate Diploma in Education) programme at one Scottish university were interviewed. The results indicate that the choice of a teaching career derived from…

The problem of educational achievement by boys and young men is a long-standing and big one that has been largely ignored by policymakers. This new HEPI report considers the consequences for individuals and society and proposes: (1) adopting a 'boy positive' environment in schools; (2) expanding proven grassroots initiatives that help boys; (3)…

This study investigates pre-service teachers' motivations and perceptions about the decision to choose teaching as a career choice. Twenty-seven students who have embarked on teacher education programme in Scotland were interviewed. It was found that students conveyed ambivalent feelings and perspectives in the decision to teach in the sense that…

Higher education lecturers who have moved into teaching on professional education programmes from careers in professional practice are an under-researched group. Questions related to self-concept combined with wider social and sectoral issues relating to perceptions about the nature and purpose of higher education can affect the development of…

This paper investigates how academics in the current global higher education system -- which often prioritises metrics of research activity and income generation over rich conceptualisation of transformative teaching -- can sustain identities that encompass deep care for teaching. This is a significant area that has been little researched,…

Given widespread acceptance of the role of teaching in improving student outcomes, it is not surprising that policy makers have turned to teaching standards as a lever for educational improvement. There are, however, long-standing critiques of standards that suggest they are reductionist and promote a dualism between theory and practice. Our…

This paper follows on from the previous bulletin (Redford 2017), which covered the education remit of the Parliament's Education and Skills Committee between September 2016 and January 2017. The following bulletin covers the Education remit of the Education and Skills Committee from January to August 2017.

This paper examines the roles of research in teacher education across the four nations of the United Kingdom. Both devolution and on-going reviews of teacher education are facilitating a greater degree of cross-national divergence. England is becoming a distinct outlier, in which the locus for teacher education is moving increasingly away from…

This paper takes a sociocultural approach to questions around the professional identity of teacher educators in Scotland. Through an analysis of the historical trajectory of Scottish teacher education and its institutions, it is suggested that there are four distinctive groups of staff currently working in the university departments that provide…

This paper offers a new way of exploring some of the complexities inherent in attempts by policy makers and others to promote educational change. The focus of this study is on the current drive in education policy to alter the basis of teacher professionalism through the application of principles of lifelong learning to teachers' professional…

This policy profile on education in the United Kingdom (UK) is part of the new "Education Policy Outlook series," which presents comparative analysis of education policies and reforms across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Building on the substantial comparative and sectorial policy knowledge…

Ensuring quality in and through teaching and learning has become a fundamental global concern. Emanating from a colloquium on "Quality Assurance and Teacher Education" hosted by University College Dublin in 2010 and funded by the European Educational Research Association, this book interrogates how quality cultures can be fostered in the…

This article provides an overview of the background and recent developments leading to the current reshaping of teacher education in Scotland, starting with the developments emanating in the past decade from the McCrone Report and finishing with the recent Donaldson Report, "Teaching Scotland's Future." It documents the key features of…