ON TEACHERS PRACTICAL REASONING AND PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE - CONSIDERING CONCEPTIONS OF CONTEXT IN TEACHERS THINKING

Within research on teacher thinking there are tendencies to isolate teachers from their social and historical context. In order to deal with such issues a perspective on teachers' thinking and action based on concepts of practical reason and logic of events is presented. This approach focusses on the complex interplay between internal and external determinants on teaching in specific cases. Teachers' conceptions of the context in their professional world are here considered as important links in such an interplay. From theoretical and empirical considerations it is argued that context in terms of normative pressures on teachers and of survival in closer personal networks are of vital importance for teachers when they try to change their teaching. By developing theoretical constructs based on descriptions of teachers' knowledge, teachers' abilities to control context will be strengthened.