Profession or Marketplace? Mapping the Competing Logics of K–12 Teacher Education Reform

The reform landscape of teacher education in the United States is both complex and rapidly evolving, and reforms to teacher education have emerged as a contested site of struggle between diverse political and ideological camps in education. In this qualitative multiple case study, I investigate the extent to which the underlying logics of these reforms to teacher education shape teacher education programs as organizations. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 74 program leaders, teacher educators, and teacher candidates across three U.S. teacher education programs, I find that each program is organized around multiple competing reform logics. Each program draws upon two “logic constellations”—democratic professionalism and corporate marketplace—which both shape and constrain programs’ enactment of their organizational missions.