Uncertainty in the Context of School and Teacher Education in Educational Science Literature—A Systematic Review

Although uncertainty has gained increasing attention in education, to date, existing research on the topic has not been collated. Therefore, this systematic review sought to understand which range of phenomena, terms, and theoretical conceptualizations of uncertainty are found in the education research literature in the context of school and teacher education. A systematic search of publications (2005–2020) in the two most widely used publication languages in the social sciences (English and German) yielded an initial sample of n initial = 3,847 publications. The rigorous application of four inclusion criteria reduced that number to n final = 201. Synthesis revealed four types of uncertainty: disciplinary uncertainty addressed by subject-specific curricular research, individual uncertainty addressed by teacher knowledge research, interactional uncertainty addressed by classroom research, and contextual uncertainty addressed by school research. The review found a fundamental contradiction: While many theoretical publications constitute uncertainty as something to be taken into account and addressed, empirical papers found widespread camouflaging or eradication of uncertainty in educational practices. The presented conceptual scheme and findings will hopefully inspire future work into uncertainty in education.