Economic and Political Analysis of Initial Teacher Education from Consensus and Conflict Perspectives in Documents of International Institutions

Abstract

This study aims to reveal the economic and political issues underlying the remarks related to initial teacher education (ITE) in the documents published by international institutions, European Union (EU), Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and United Nations (UN), and to examine these issues from the perspective of consensus and conflict approaches to education. The study is designed as a systematic review. ITE-related 67 documents published by UN, EU, and OECD were analyzed following several coding steps. According to the results, international institutions promote entrepreneurship, life-long learning, and information and communication technologies as economic issues in ITE. As political issues, they put forward social themes including preparing for diversity, quality in ITE including accountability and standards, and structure of ITE including flexibility and autonomy. Although the documents are mainly parallel with the consensus approach, economic and political issues revealed in the study were discussed from perspectives of both approaches. One perspective considers promoting the economic issues in ITE the economic efficiency and growth which is beneficial for all. The other reminds that division of this benefit may include class-based inequalities. Also, different perspectives emphasize different social themes and they bring different explanations for how the quality assurance functions.