The Teaching Profession in Changing Demands on Education

The article presents information about a research plan that will be carried out in the years 2007-2013 at the Educational Faculty of Charles under the leadership of the author of the article. It sets out the subject and goals of the research, its basic theoretical starting points, methods, profile of the research team and implementation strategy.
The subject of the research is the identification and examination of key trends in theory and research on the teaching profession, and in the research on and the practice of teacher training in the CR since 1989, in the context of current European and world developments in the field. A central defining theme of the research plan will be transformations in the concept of the teaching profession and training for it in the frame of the transformation of the Czech education system since 1989, especially in relation to curricular reform (framework and school educational programmes).
The generally formulated subject of research is made concrete and further specified in three mutually linked thematic areas: a) concepts of the teaching profession - theoretical models and research strategies, b) concepts, structures and processes of pre-paratory training of teachers, and c) models of the professional growth of teachers.
The article then presents the basic aim of the interdisciplinarily orientated research plan, which is to formulate the academic knowledge bases for the creation of a model of the professionalisation of teachers and its implementation in the system of preparatory and further education of teachers. The research will focus on teachers at nursery, basic and secondary schools (teachers of generally educational subjects). The overall aim of the research is further particularised in the form of 11 subsidiary aims.
Significant attention is devoted to the theoretical starting points of the research, especially the professionalisation of the teaching body and teacher education, and also the constructivist conception and re-flexive model and teacher education based on evidence.
The article also presents the research methods, which comprise a whole complex of quantitative and qualitative approaches. The key metho ds are considered to be meth-ods of theoretical analysis and synthesis, historical comparative models of teacher training and professional growth in selected countries, methods of forecasting trends (in the teaching profession, and teacher training) and the generation of models, secondary analysis of empirical data and meta-analysis of selected phenomena, cast-study methods, action research in education faculties and basic and secondary schools, and questionnaire methods.
The article sets out the anticipated outputs of the research. In the concluding section is presents the research team, which is markedly interdisciplinary in character and includes specialists from the following fields: pedagogics (more than half the team), psychology, didactics of mathematics, didactics of education in the natural sciences, art education, sociology and the philosophy of education. The large team requires specific instruments of direction and co-ordination of activities. The key elements here are the research plan board, team web page and the permanent interdisciplinary seminar which will fulfil the function of an information and discussion forum supporting the unification of the basic theoretical premises, lines of research and methodological approaches.