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Session code: 3-3-A203

Title: Teacher students' views on own professional competence. Relations to characteristics of late modernity and cultural background.

Contributer/s: Ragnhildur Bjarnadóttir

Abstract : The paper reports on a study done with teacher students at Iceland University of Education who are participants and partners. The purpose is to seek understanding of the competence teacher students are constructing in their teacher education studies and of their view on how teacher education should support them in constructing such competence. A theoretical framework and a model is presented, where professional competence is defined from a holistic view with help from the school curriculum (in Iceland University of Education) and writings about teacher professionalism; the model is used for studying how being able to do things as a teacher is connected to other aspects of teacher' professional competence, to be, to know, and to reflect. According to the data analysis, personal strength is the essence of the competence the teacher students are striving for and they are more concerned about methods of teaching than the contents of teaching. Findings are discussed with reference to recent writings on teacher education and characteristics of late modernity.

This study has been presented to researchers on teacher education in other Nordic countries. Some of them have shown interest in cooperation for comparing teacher students' views on own professional competence in different countries, and thereby focusing on cultural and historical differences between teacher education systems.

An additional goal of the paper is to present and discuss ideas about how such a comparison can be done.