Professional development policy and politics across international contexts: from mutuality to measurability?

This article reveals how educational policies and policy contexts in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Australia establish the circumstances which enable and constrain individual and collective teacher professional development as praxis. We provide insights into existing partnerships between universities and schools, and, municipalities and the state as vehicles for professional development, and the way in which policy contexts have shaped and reshaped these relationships. We also consider the resonances, and points of tension, across and within different national policy settings, to assist us to understand, and to productively inform, policy‐making within and across national contexts. We conclude by arguing that while professional development policies within and across international contexts are productive of teachers' collective focus upon student learning – a form of ‘mutuality’ – they increasingly serve as overarching practices which contribute to the development of educational practices reflective of national and international pressure to account for performance – a concern for ‘measurability’.