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This is the first of a two-part article that aims to chart the contemporary landscape of research on teacher preparation and certification. It is based on a review of more than 1,500 studies published between 2000 and 2012. Part 1 provides information about how the review was conducted and describes the theoretical/analytic framework the authors developed to guide the review. The framework combines ideas from the sociology of knowledge and research as social practice. This framework situates the research on teacher education within salient economic, intellectual, and demographic developments of the past half century and also examines the practices of researchers who are differently positioned from one another, have divergent purposes and audiences, and who work both inside and outside teacher education. Part 1 also analyzes the first of three major research programs--research on teacher preparation accountability, effectiveness, and policies, identifying strengths and weaknesses in this body of studies.

This is the second of a two-part article intended to offer teacher educators a cohesive overview of the sprawling and uneven field of research on teacher preparation by identifying, analyzing, and critiquing its major programs. The article discusses research on teacher preparation for the knowledge society and research on teacher preparation for diversity and equity, the second and third programs of research the authors identified through their massive review of research on initial teacher education, 2000-2012. Guided by their "Research on Teacher Preparation as Historically Situated Social Practice" theoretical/analytic framework, the authors describe the multiple clusters of studies comprising each of these programs of research and examine the social practices in which researchers engaged within one cluster selected from each. This article also suggests new directions for research on teacher education based on lacunae in the literature and on our analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the existing field. [for Framing Teacher Preparation Research: An Overview of the Field, Part 1, see EJ1048268.]

In this commentary, the author aims to pull together the threads in the conversation between multicultural and special teacher educators surrounding issues of collaboration, as reflected in this issue. She begins with a brief discussion of collaborative teacher education--a central concept to the dialogue--and then comments on why she thinks such an approach to preparing teachers for today's schools is compelling and what is at stake if educators fail to collaborate. Looking across the articles, the author then highlights major tensions between the fields of multicultural and special education that demand candid discussion before the collaboration can take place. Building on insights offered by the authors who write from a multicultural perspective and her own professional experience, the author identifies a few ideas that have the potential for moving the needed collaboration forward.

The use of a dispositional framework in the preparation of teachers, especially one that attends to issues of social justice, has generated considerable debate of late. In this article, the author argues that assessing teacher candidates' dispositions related to social justice is both reasonable and defensible. She explains why social justice matters in teacher education, provides a definition of the term dispositions and discusses why programs of teacher education must attend to them, and gives examples of practices used at one institution to assess teacher candidates' dispositions related to social justice to illustrate that such assessment can be done in a fair and principled manner. The author concludes that underlying the dispositions debate is an all-out war to define the goals of public education, the role of teachers, the nature of knowledge, and conceptions of learning, teaching, and learning to teach.

Despite an increasing number of English-language learners (ELLs) in U.S. schools and a trend toward placing them in mainstream classrooms, relatively little attention has been paid to synthesizing and appraising the extant research on how future mainstream teachers are prepared to teach this student population. To shed light on this topic, the article analyzes the limited but expanding body of research on the preprofessional preparation of mainstream teachers for linguistically diverse classrooms. The authors found that between 2000 and 2018, teacher educators experimented with a variety of pedagogical strategies, most of which situated learning to teach ELLs in diverse classrooms, schools, and communities--both in the United States and elsewhere. The authors conclude that despite having equity goals and including a variety of pedagogically rich ideas for preparing future mainstream teachers to teach ELLs, the vast majority of the studies leave unquestioned the power dynamics that sustain existing educational and social inequalities, thereby perpetuating the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article systematically reviews and critically appraises the research published since 2000 on preparing preservice teachers for English language learners (ELLs). Employing Feiman-Nemser’s framework for teacher learning, the authors address what the research suggests about the nature and outcomes of preservice learning opportunities offered to mainstream teachers for teaching ELLs. The review sheds light on how preservice teachers learn to teach ELLs and the learning opportunities they are offered to support this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English language learners (ELLs) are often placed in mainstream classrooms to be taught by teachers with little preparation for linguistic diversity. This essay discusses the negative consequences for ELLs of being taught by teachers who are unprepared to teach them, making a case for the urgent need to prepare a linguistically responsive teaching force. It also highlights the contributions the authors in this special issue make toward preparing mainstream teachers for today's linguistically diverse classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that research on teacher preparation over the last 100 years can be understood in terms of the major questions that researchers examined. The analysis is guided by the framework of “research as historically situated social practice,” which emphasizes that researchers’ interests, commitments, and social experiences guide the research questions they pursue and the theories and perspectives they adopt. Past research on initial teacher education is described in terms of the emergence of three broad questions: “the curriculum question,” “the effectiveness question,” and “the knowledge question.” Present research focuses on two broad animating questions: “the policy question” and “the learning question.” We recommend that future research address questions that link teacher learning with student learning and teacher candidates’ beliefs and practices as well as questions that examine the relationships between research practices and social, economic and institutional power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students who speak languages other than English are a growing presence in U.S. schools. As a result, many mainstream classroom teachers are finding that they have English language learners in their classes. Unfortunately, most mainstream classroom teachers have had little or no preparation for providing the types of assistance that such learners need to successfully learn academic content and skills through English while developing proficiency in English. In this article, the authors identify a small set of principles that can serve as the linguistic foundation for the teaching of English language learners in mainstream classes. The authors then outline linguistically responsive pedagogical practices that flow directly from those principles. They conclude with concrete suggestions for how teacher education programs can incorporate the knowledge and skills that will prepare all preservice teachers to be linguistically responsive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]