Philosophy, Critical Reflection and the Development of Teacher Leadership in Teacher Education, East Meets West

Across the world, teacher education programs are under review. In some contexts where its academic dimension is sufficiently well-established, philosophy may continue to thrive. However, in many other settings where the academic dimension is being downsized and fragmented in favor of employment-based learning, philosophy is under threat, if indeed it enjoys a place at all on the teacher education curriculum. Moreover, globalization in teacher education has infused its context-specific dimensions (Robertson 2013), such that a prevailing concern with educational “quality,” and connected to this “teacher leadership,” has dominated the policy discourse (hence practice) over a number of years (Oancea and Orchard 2012) and in most jurisdictions.

Yet even on an employment-based model, strong arguments have been made for philosophy in teachers’ professional formation programs generally, an argument which may also be relevant to those needing to defend the retention of philosophy...