Background and purpose:
Professional tendencies of physical education teachers are influenced by their personal experiences as well as the physical education teacher education (PETE) programmes in which they are educated (Lawson, 1983). This project therefore aimed to share, explore and understand PETE curricula across Europe and identify the best practices.
Summary of the main points:
We present information and practices related to PETE at the initial, induction and in-service stages in primary and post-primary levels in twenty-five Erasmus+ Programme Countries. The paper on initial PETE refers to entrance requirements, graduation, content of the curriculum and pedagogical practices. The induction and in-service papers each refer to how the respective stages of PETE are structured and who is responsible for the enactment.
Conference aims and themes:
This symposium addresses the conference main theme by empowering PETE systems and the sub-theme by supporting the PETE experts’ professional learning through presenting the best PETE practices.
Methods:
PETE experts selected by purposive sampling from twenty-five European countries shared their PETE curricula and best practices, focusing particularly on the three elements of the teacher education continuum, i.e. initial, induction and in-service. Data was collected through a semi-structed template that informed the experts’ presentation of the initial, induction and in-service procedures and experiences in their respective countries. Question and answer sessions after each presentation allowed for clarification and further information to be collected. All presentations were transcribed, coded and thematically analysed on the constant comparative method (Glaser& Strauss, 1967; Patton, 1990; Neuman, 2012).
Conclusions and implications:
This project is considered to create an important reference point in PETE, given there is no other such comparative study. The symposium (i) encourages all involved in PETE to observe and evaluate best practices in Europe, and (ii) encourages PETE scholars to work and collaborate with colleagues from other countries.
