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A recurring issue for researchers, policy-makers and practitioners is how new knowledge can be disseminated, critiqued, assessed and incorporated into policy development and practice. Campbell and Fulford examined strategies in a Canadian Education Ministry which was striving to incorporate research findings into policy debate. They evolved a useful framework indentifying six forms and stages of knowledge development related to research use in this context: generation of new knowledge, mobilisation, contextualisation, adaptation, application and integration. This paper uses their framework to explore links between research and practice in a collaborative cross-cultural partnership designed to develop greater capacity in teacher education in a Pacific country, and based on action, coconstruction and reflection. It argues that there are blurred boundaries between knowledge production and its practical implementation, use and testing, that contextualisation and relationship building are crucial to knowledge mobilisation, and that knowledge is generated across all stages in the process.

How can New Zealand schools be provided with a sufficient supply of knowledgeable and skilled teachers at a reasonable cost? This question has shaped teacher education policy over decades but its interpretation and preferred solutions have varied markedly. By 1970 three-year training for primary teachers was finally achieved and teachers colleges were striving to change their organisational patterns, move away from their image as extended secondary schools and become fully tertiary institutions. Colleges had also acquired their own councils, though important decisions in finance, numbers, curriculum and staffing were all made finally by the Department of Education. In 2012 most teacher education in New Zealand is carried out in university faculties of education offering early childhood, primary and secondary programmes and heavily involved in continuing professional education. These significant developments have occurred against a backdrop of social and systemic change in New Zealand. In this paper I examine what issues have shaped educational policy in teacher education, what conflicting ideas have underpinned it, and which players have been pivotal. Key themes include (i) the scope, nature and preferred locus of teacher education; (ii) control, funding and quality assurance; and (iii) supply and demand for teachers. The paper will examine policy documents, reports, critique, and systemic developments with a focus on the changing and often contradictory nature of concepts such as professionalism, accountability, student success, and teacher quality.

Teachers and Curriculum provides an avenue for the publication of papers that: raise important issues to do with the curriculum report on research in the area of curriculum provide examples of informed curriculum practice review books that have a curriculum focus. This peer reviewed journal welcomes papers on any of these from tertiary staff and students, teachers and other educators who have a special interest in curriculum matters. Papers on research may be full papers, or if time or space is at a premium, research notes, that is a 2,000 word summary. Submitting articles for publication The editorial committee encourages contributors to ask colleagues to comment on their manuscripts, from an editorial point of view, before submission for publication.