Transnational policy discourses on teacher education: A cosmopolitan perspective

Abstract

In this article, I analyse some of the transnational ‘authoritative’ policy documents on teacher education and teacher development from a cosmopolitan perspective. The purpose is to explore the possibilities for analysing the characteristics of teacher education and the role of the teacher in transnational texts from a cosmopolitan perspective in order to explore the field of tension between an economic cosmopolitan approach and a moral cosmopolitan approach to justice. Mainly drawing on Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, I argue that it is possible to go beyond a limited economic perspective in order to make an alternative approach to teacher education visible, where the possibility to revitalize and reconstruct local school activities is in focus. One conclusion is that teacher education in transnational policy texts can be understood both within a ‘reification discourse’ and within a ‘reflexivity discourse’. An important distinction between the two discourses is the understanding of critical reflections as related to evidence-based standards or to an understanding of an individual’s positionality, relationality and historicity.