Europeanisation in Teacher Education: A Comparative Case Study of Teacher Education Policies and Practices,Review essay

Abstract

This essay is a review on the book titled Europeanisation in Teacher Education: A Comparative Case Study of Teacher Education Policies and Practices, by Vasileios Symeonidis, which is a valuable contribution to the field of international and comparative education investigating the interaction between local and general, in this sense “European” trajectories in teacher education.

“Europeanization” is a term that coincides with the integration of member countries into the Union which comprises compliance of local regulations with general European principles framed with EU regulations (Carlson et al., 2018; Olsen, 2002; Radaelli, 2003). This compliance often indicates social and structural basics of the EU following the integration (Favell and Guiraudon, 2009). The area of education still exists as a national realm even though national educational policies of member countries are often structured within the framework of EU integration policies. Within the framework of Europeanization, several programs and common higher education policies have been implemented such as the composition of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), European Research Area (ERA), and Erasmus mobility programs for both scholars and students, and Marie Sklodowska Curie funding for researchers. Furthermore, there has been an orientation in national curricula of schools and an aimed standardization for educational implementations (Hornberg, 2010).

Europeanisation in Teacher Education: A Comparative Case Study of Teacher Education Policies and Practices, by Vasileios Symeonidis, is a valuable contribution to the field of international and comparative education via investigating the interaction between local and general, in this sense “European” trajectories in teacher education. The book has been analytically attempting to situate teacher education vis-à-vis Europeanization policies, focusing on the impact of European policy developments on domestic policy-making. Europeanisation in Teacher Education is an eloquently written and exhaustively researched book based on Symeonidis’s PhD thesis and comes out as an imprint of the Routledge Research in Teacher Education series. The book offers a set of tightly argued notions such as the mechanisms of the European teacher education plot and processes of its constitution including initial teacher education (ITE), teacher induction and continuing professional development (CPD). Familiarizing readers with themes, debates and methodology in the field of teacher education, this book also encompasses empirical data on three countries, Austria, Greece, and Hungary, confronting a multiplicity of issues in the area with a comparative perspective.

In the introduction part of the book, Symeonidis provides a comprehensive review of the literature regarding the study of Europeanisation in teacher education. He aims at conceptualizing Europeanization and recruits it as a term that appears as a “useful and explanatory concept” and underlines its implications being broader than the sole “EU membership” while referring to a set of integration theories analyzing the processes of institutional changes among the member states. Within this context, Symeonidis insightfully accounts for the particularities of domestic factors and their way of dealing with the impact of Europeanization and employs three research questions stated as a core for this book’s composition. The questions are mainly based on three aspects which are the definition and consolidation of teacher education in the making of EU policies and their implications on teacher education (both policy and practice); the adaptations and contradictions of Austrian, Greek, and Hungarian policies to these developments and the contribution/location of actors to these policies.

Situating his research on three countries, Austria, Greece, and Hungary, Symoneidis skillfully converges these individual pieces by observing them leaning on their commonalities and differences. Eloquently employing George and Bennett’s (2005) method of “process tracing,” his book meticulously examines, compares and contrasts the teacher education systems of these three countries in the 21st century vis-à-vis their policies and practices. In this context, the sociological term “resonance” by Miller (2015: 61) is addressed to scrutinize with a refined perspective that taps at the significant relationship between the utilization of European resources and the preferences of local policymakers. As a unique way of analysis, this book also includes the perspective of actors in the system, namely teacher educators and teachers with a contextual approach and demonstrates the traces of policy transformation into action. Hence, it delves into less explored themes and debates on the teacher education of the above-mentioned countries and achieves to bring an original contribution that attempts to create a meaningful comparing/contrasting text.

The book comprises six chapters that address the complex and contradictory effects of Europeanization on the educational systems of the above-mentioned case countries, Austria, Greece, and Hungary. After the introduction chapter examined above, there are three chapters on case countries that skilfully reflect the diverse and evolving forms and relations between European policies and local dynamics of case countries. The book provides a comprehensive historical overview of the development of teacher education and the related settings of the current education system for all three countries. The resonance of European developments vis-à-vis the education modules is scrutinized by employing related concepts such as professionalism, continuing professional development (CPD) and the significance of teacher educators. The author prefers to have a parallel structure while describing the teacher education process of each country and this preference helps readers to follow and sort the diverse data efficiently.

The last two chapters discuss the European teacher education framework and contrast the case-country teacher education models across three axes namely “scales, systems, and time.” This comparison, which is one of the unique characteristics of the book, not only expands the insight into the analytical approach towards Europeanization but also reflects on voids in the field. Looking at these three axes, the author seems to reach the conclusion that European teacher education policies seem to influence all three case countries that are evaluated through levels of impact, time, and space (which are interconnected) but among these countries, Greece is the one that is more bound to local dynamics rather than European framework. Although this issue has been emphasized throughout the book several times, the reasons for this discrepancy have been open for more clarification. The recent financial crisis and traditional educational structures of Greece have been mentioned in the case country evaluation; however, these points of rupture and resistance deserve more elaboration since Greece constitutes a different case from Austria and Hungary according to the book. Going beyond a descriptive approach, this genuine claim based on the well-conducted data could be a distinguishing characteristic of this book contributing to its analytical side; however, it has been left rather unprocessed. In a book that claims to prioritize a comparative analytical approach, I would expect that the reasons for this discrepancy, its historical background, and its consequences, which are diligently studied in their particularities in Chapter 4 dealing with Greece, were more neatly placed and discussed in Chapter 6 which portrays the concluding remarks of the book as well. Nevertheless, these critical points in this book review do not reduce the importance of this book, on the contrary, they pave the way for further studies on Greece’s local preferences among other EU countries vis a vis teacher education.

In conclusion, Europeanization in the field of education has been discussed extensively within the existing literature, however the discussion of its impacts in the area of teacher education with a comparative perspective has not been covered widely. Contrubuting efficiently to the field of education, this book expands the understanding of Europeanization process, achieves the conceptualization of terms regarding specifically teacher education and uses this conceptual framework on three different country cases. Hence, this book contributes to literature on both theoretical and practical means while raising the comprehension of different processes of teacher education with a comparative approach through rich examples of diverse country cases. Symoneidis scrutinizes the professional development of the teachers of Europe by comparing and contrasting local practices and policies framing their building up process during their teacher education.

I read and appreciate Europeanisation in Teacher Education: A Comparative Case Study of Teacher Education Policies and Practices as a response to crucial aspects of conceptualizing teacher education in the framework of Europeanization with contemporary and comparative data. This book can also be read as a call for further effort and work on studies regarding teacher education based on qualitative data. Last and not the least, I would like to denote that Symeonidis insightfully accounts for the particularities of political practice and the aspirations regarding teacher education among EU countries and I believe his analysis will deserve praise and appeal to international scholars due to its data-based approach and comparative perspective situated in a relevant and detailed background and theoretical framework.