Conceptions of theory within initial teacher education in England are adjusting to new conditions where most learning how to teach is school-based. Student teachers on a programme situated primarily in an employing school were monitored within a practitioner enquiry by their university programme tutors according to how they progressively understood theory. The tutors meanwhile also focused on how their own conceptions of theory responded and evolved in relation to their students' changing perceptions. This resulted in the students retrospectively identifying and developing theoretical and analytical capabilities. University sessions became a reflective platform from which to critically interrogate the emergent story of what it is to be a teacher in a school. There are implications for schools and universities about what it is to learn to be a teacher.

Drawing on semi-structured interviews this small case study examines the perceptions of a group of trainees on the employment-based Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP) towards the close of their initial teacher education. Building on earlier work on the experience of secondary GTP trainees that had revealed trainees' ambivalence to 'theory', this paper examines what these trainees understood theory to be, and what they saw as the benefits from 'learning from experience', and more generally how they acquire professional knowledge. Findings suggest that GTP trainees were able to identify ways in which 'theory' had positively influenced their practice. Yet, we concur with Eraut's claim that most workplace learning occurs on the job and that this masks an uncertain interplay between formal and less formal elements of how trainee teachers learn on the employment-based GTP route studied here.

School mathematics is a function of its discursive environment where the language being used formats mathematical activity. The paper explores this theme through an extended example in which the conduct of mathematical teaching and learning is restricted by regulative educational policies. It considers how mathematics is discursively produced by student teachers within an employment-based model of teacher education in England where there is a low university input. It is argued that teacher reflections on mathematical learning and teaching within the course are patterned discursively in line with formal curriculum framings, assessment requirements and the local demands of their placement school. Both teachers and students are subject to regulative discourses that shape their actions and as a consequence this regulation influences the forms of mathematical activity that can take place. It is shown how university sessions can provide a limited critical platform from which to interrogate these restrictions and renegotiate them.

An alternative formulation of the actor in educational action research is shown to refresh notions of theory within initial teacher education. Methodologically, the actor is depicted as identifying with ongoing cultural adjustments through reflective data. Specifically, the paper considers the experience of mature trainee teachers in the United Kingdom, who participated in employment-based models of training. Initially, trainees were drawn to meeting the immediate demands of practice in specific locations. Capacity in practice more generally accrued through later exposure to analytical approaches. The paper documents collaborative action research by teacher educators focusing on the changing demands of their development work with the trainees. The resultant struggle of professional identity for tutors is seen as productive, adjusting educative processes to new circumstances. The actor of action research so equipped mobilises a conception of theory supportive of more responsive subjective modes within wider professional functionality.

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