This book supports all those involved in initial teacher education (ITE) and with an interest in partnership working. Such partnerships are at the heart of ITE practices, both in the UK and internationally, but more recently models of partnership have become ever more complex as a result of government reforms, the rapid diversification of routes into teaching and significant increase in the number of SCITTs. The nature of partnerships in ITE remains contested with partnership working often reduced to a series of prescriptions for effective practice, ignoring both its pedagogic potential and inherent tensions. This book surveys and critiques partnership developments in recent years and then analyses a single case study of a school that exemplifies the current complexity of ITE partnerships using both policy and practice perspectives. It concludes with a series of principles that might underpin effective partnership working.

Ian Menter (AcSS) is Professor of Teacher Education and Director of Professional Programmes in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. He previously worked at the Universities of Glasgow, the West of Scotland, London Metropolitan, the West of England and Gloucestershire. Before that he was a primary school teacher in Bristol, England. His most recent publications include A Literature Review on Teacher Education for the 21st Century (Scottish Government) and A Guide to Practitioner Research in Education(Sage). His work has also been published in many academic journals.

Katharine Burnis a university lecturer in education at the University of Oxford where she leads the PGCE history programme. She taught history for 10 years in school and became fascinated by the process of professional learning, first as a mentor of beginning teachers and then as a head of department desperately trying to keep more senior colleagues focused on developing their classroom practice. After completing a doctorate studying history teachers' learning in school and university, she became research officer for the Developing Expertise of Beginning Teachers (DEBT) project, a longitudinal study of 24 beginning teachers that traced their development over the course of their initial training and through the first two years of their career.

Hazel Haggerwas co-director of the Developing Expertise of Beginning Teachers (DEBT) project. She taught English for many years before joining the University of Oxford in order to contribute to the development of one of the earliest ITE partnerships, and went on to become PGCE course director. Her doctoral research focused on ways of making practising teachers' expertise accessible to beginners and she has written extensively on teachers' learning and development.

Trevor Mutton is the current PGCE course director at the University of Oxford, where he also contributes to the Master's programme in Learning and Teaching. He taught Modern Foreign Languages before joining the university and has since been involved in a range of research into language teaching and into the nature of beginning teachers' learning (including the Developing Expertise of Beginning Teachers (DEBT) project).

1.Introduction: what do we know about the nature of ITE partnerships?
2.Issues and problems with partnerships
3.How is current policy being implemented? A case study.
4.The practice of partnership: strengths, tensions and opportunities.
5.Towards a principled approach to ITE partnership working.