Research and Teacher Learning: Taking an Inquiry Stance

Abstract

In the United States, teacher education and teacher learning have been highly debated topics since the time that teacher preparation first emerged as an identifiable activity in the late 1800s. The relationship of research to teacher education and the role of research in teacher learning have been central issues in the debates almost from the beginning, particularly in disputes about what disciplines are appropriate to the study of education, what counts or should count as educational scholarship, and how evidence is or should be used to make the case for particular approaches to the professional preparation of teachers (Borrowman 1965; Lagemann 2000). Although the history of teacher education and the history of educational research have long been linked to one another, in the United States research is currently playing a more prominent role in debates than ever before. In fact in many of the most important contemporary debates about teacher quality and teacher preparation, the central focus – at least on the surface – is research itself, particularly on whether or not there is a research basis for teacher education and if so, what that research base suggests.