Teacher Educators and Teacher Education Reform: Individual Commitments, Institutional Realities

I conducted a three-year study of pre-tenure professors of teacher education directly and indirectly involved in the reform of teacher education in Canada to gain a better understanding of the changes in which pre-tenure teacher education faculty are engaged and of the personal and contextual influences that facilitate and constrain their efforts to do things differently. The research approach was broadly qualitative; more specifically, I conducted my research from a life-history perspective, which situates individuals' accounts of experience within a broader personal, historical, social, political, cultural, and/or institutional context. In this article I provide an overview of the types of reform characterizing teacher educators' work and explore some obstacles to this work, highlighting the intersection between individuals' commitments to reform and institutional realities that often militate against or obstruct these efforts. L'auteure presente une dtude de trois ans portant sur des professeurs en formation a l'enseignement, en voie d'acquerir leur permanence et participant directement et indirectement a la reforme de la formation a l'enseignement au Canada. L'6tude visait a mieux cemer la nature des changements mis en ceuvre par ces professeurs ainsi que les influences personnelles et contextuelles favorisant ou non les efforts en vue de faire les choses autrement. II s'agissait d'une 6tude qualitative, faisant appel a une approche biographique situant les comptes rendus des experiences des personnes dans un contexte personnel,