Within the broader landscape of the European Higher Education Area, teacher education receives increasing significance as an academic field that contributes to the quality of the teaching labour force and consequently impacts student learning. This paper aims to explore the European Teacher Education Area (ETEA) by analysing to what extent and how mechanisms, processes, and key agents of Europeanisation, internal or external to the European Union (EU), influence the transformation of teacher education policies and practices in Europe. Transformation is understood in the context of Europeanisation, and emphasis of the analysis is placed on the process rather than the content of transforming teacher education in Europe. To this end, data have been collected through document review and expert interviews with European policy officials. As a result of qualitative content analysis, the data have been clustered and analysed according to the following categories, which mutually reinforce each other: (1) policy coordination; (2) cross-sectoral instruments; (3) evidence-based management; (4) the Bologna process; (5) educational programmes; and (6) stakeholder pressure. Findings provide a conceptual framework for mapping the ETEA as a complex policy ecosystem that includes vertical and horizontal procedures of Europeanisation. The EU has developed extensive capacities to influence teacher education in Europe and increasingly involves other sectors, such as employment, in this process.

Teacher Status and the Role of Teacher Unions in the Context of New Professionalism

The aim of this article is to examine the development and implementation of teacher competence frameworks in Hungary. Supported by European structural funds, Hungary introduced a teacher competence framework for initial teacher education in 2006 and another for the career promotion and appraisal of teachers in 2013. Employing the process tracing method, the article follows the evolution of teacher competence frameworks over time, based on a document analysis and expert interviews with policy officials and teacher educators. Findings show that the Hungarian teacher competence frameworks evolved as an outcome of a broader Europeanisation process in teacher education, on the one hand, and of internal political priorities, on the other. Strong political commitment was often linked to weak implementation capacities, so that dissatisfaction was created on the side of teachers. Depending on the way local actors use these frameworks, some perceive it as a way of limiting teacher autonomy, whilst others feel it promotes teacher professionalism.

This paper aims to examine to what extent and how teacher education in Hungary reflects contemporary European policy and research developments with regard to the continuum of teacher education, meaning the overarching unity of initial teacher education, induction, and continuing professional development. First, the paper examines European policy documents to identify patterns and themes related to the continuum concept. Based on the specific analysis, a framework was developed to explore the continuum of teacher education and this was employed in the case of Hungary. Drawing from a content analysis of official documents and in-depth interviews with national policy experts and teacher educators as well as focus groups with teachers, the paper continues by analysing the development of teacher education in Hungary from the introduction of the Bologna reforms in 2005 to the restoration of undivided initial teacher education in 2012 and the implementation of a new system for the teacher career path in 2013. The findings indicate that while Hungary has adopted several structural elements related to the continuum which reflect European thinking, a lack of interconnections among the different phases of teacher education is apparent.