A survey of the discourse on the professionalization of (mathematics) teachers from a competence-oriented perspective

The recent discourse on teacher professionalization has been influenced by several different paradigmatic approaches, which have emerged in the past, building the theoretical foundations of the teaching profession and the professionalization of teachers. Among other approaches, the competence-oriented paradigm of teacher professionalization has strongly influenced the discourse on teachers and their effectiveness through its links with extensive large-scale studies. Various theoretical frameworks have been developed within this discourse, based on Shulman's approach to pedagogical content knowledge. Focusing on the broad outlines, in this narrative review with a conceptual-theoretical orientation, we describe how the discourse evolved from an initially dominant cognitive perspective focusing on teachers’ knowledge, distinguishing different knowledge-related domains, to the inclusion of a situated perspective, which is mainly conceptualized as teachers’ noticing. After discussing seminal conceptualizations in the field, we present the results of empirical studies on teacher professionalization with a focus on competence encompassing teachers’ dispositions and situation-specific skills, going further to instructional quality and student learning gains as parts of teachers’ chain of impact. Emphasis has been placed on the influence of culture and international comparative studies, as in recent years the discourse has moved from a focus on local educational systems to global developments. The paper concludes with a description of new directions in the discourse on professionalization, integrating teacher expertise as an enrichment of the current competence paradigm.