Newly Qualified Teachers’ Understandings of Research-based Teacher Education Practices–Two Cases From Finland and Norway

This study examines newly qualified teachers’ (NQTs) understandings ofresearch-based teacher education practices by looking at two cases inFinland and Norway. The NQTs were interviewed after they had finishedtheir master’s degrees and before they started their careers. The resultsof the individual semistructured interviews and a thematic analysisrevealed a weak connection between research-based knowledge gainedfrom initial teacher education (ITE) and the teachers’ professional work.The Finnish NQTs were highly research oriented, while the NorwegianNQTs focused on teachers’ development of their daily work. The resultsare discussed in relation to the theory of practice architectures, as wellas how cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-politicalarrangements enable and constrain different kinds of research-based ITEpractices in both countries.