Pedagogical Professionalism and Professionalization in Norway and Japan

Abstract

Pedagogical professionalism and professionalization of teachers has been frequently discussed by educators and the media in recent years. This paper is a discourse on the problem with teacher education in Japan and Norway as the context. The discourse is based on a review of governing documents, scientific articles and interviews of teachers. The discourse concludes that the concept “pedagogical professionalism” has changed over the last decades, and now applied in different ways by different interest groups like students, teachers and school owners. Pedagogical professionalism is also interpreted, explained and used differently in different countries. The main conclusion is that pedagogical professionalism is the “integrated composite” of different skills that makes the role of teachers unique and different from other professions.