Comparative Research on Teacher Education [antikvár]

PrefaceFor rcscarchers investigating deeper meanings of social changes in Central-Eastern European countries, it is essential to study jointly the history of nations living together in this area, their social problems and, most importantly, the educational dilemmas of the present. In reality, this CEE comparative thinking not only contributes to the sell-rellexive interpretation of social processes but also calls attention to a specific direction of international collaboration that was ignored by many after the change of the political system following 1989. By now, it has become evident that for a better understanding of our own condition, we should think together with people living in similar social and economic circumstances instead of looking at our rellection in the mirror of the West, which has a highly simplified idolized image in our minds and a thought system different from our own.This is indeed not the first occasion in which the editors have supported the cooperation of educational researchers from this region. Their previous research studied the educational function of different churches and religions during this period of change. In this contribution, nearly all post-communist countries are represented by a study presenting the country-based interpretations of the investigated type of education to offer a chance to understand the uniqueness and the common features of faith-based institutions in this region. (Pusztai G. ed. 2008. Education and Church in Central- and Eastern-Europe at First glance. Debrecen: Center for Higher Education Research and Development, Pusztai G. ed. 2010. Religion and Higher Education in Central and Eastern Europe). With this study, the research group from Central-Eastern Europe also turned to current and crucial questions affecting educational research.It is of primary importance to examine the position of teachers' communities, since all the post-socialist countries face the difficulties of the ideologically defenseless, politically imbued, low prestige status of teachers who are even divided due to economic envy. As a consequence, the lure of this profession is decreasing, a professional identity fails to evolve, teachers are unmotivated to obtain specialized knowledge or unwilling to self-train themselves and have a low social esteem. All these dangerous tendencies must be diagnosed and empirically researched, to avoid individual countries from considering them their own troubles or to be a whim of fate.