Case outline

This section describes the case, the type of the case study and its particular features. At the outset, it should be clarified what is defined as case in this study, since different researchers

42 determine a case in different ways (Baxter & Jack, 2008; George & Bennett, 2005; Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2009). For Yin (2009), the case is essentially the “unit of analysis” (p. 30) and relates to the way a researcher has defined the initial research questions. As Merriam (1998) puts it, case is “a thing, a single entity, a unit around which there are boundaries” (p. 27), including a person, a programme, a group, a specific policy and so on. Considering the aim of this study to explore Europeanisation in teacher education, and the respective research questions, the main unit of analysis is the country and particularly the country’s teacher education system.

As explained in the theoretical framework chapter in section 2.2, teacher education is conceptualised from the lenses of a policy ecosystem with multiple layers in which various policies and practices related to the continuum of teacher professional development can be developed and enacted. The idea of the case as a system appears in both Merriam (1998) and Stake (2006) who recognise that certain features are within the system, while other features are outside and help to define the context of the case. However, the case study approach adopted in the present research is not limited to the logic of pre-determined units of analysis, recognising that social relations are complex and that national policies increasingly draw on knowledge produced globally. Therefore, the need to consider a processual logic that seeks to trace across scales, sites and time periods is essential to understanding the case (Barlett &

Vavrus, 2017a). Teacher education as a policy ecosystem has spatial and temporal characteristics which are relative and socially constructed. This means that teacher education policies and practices are transformed as they move across scales and sites, and as they develop over time. Their boundaries are blurred and constructed by social actors, including me as researcher envisaging to bind the case.

Binding the case means to consider what a case will not be (Baxter & Jack, 2008), defining spatial, temporal and other characteristics which make the case feasible to study (Yin, 2009). With regard to space, this study focuses on examining teacher education policies and practices in Europe, and particularly in the EU. For this reason, three EU member states have been selected as the national units of analysis, thus constituting the three case studies around which this study is developed. Specifically, Austria, Greece and Hungary provide the national background against which teacher education policies and practices and the potential influence of Europe can be traced. To further illustrate how teacher education policies and practices are enacted at the local level, the research design includes sub-cases of higher education institutions (HEIs), one in each country. Sub-cases include the University of Innsbruck (UIBK) in Austria, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) in Greece, and the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Hungary. A more detailed explanation regarding the selection of the specific countries and HEIs will be provided later on in this chapter.

With regard to the temporal aspect, the study focuses on teacher education policies and practices developed in the period between 2000 and 2017. Starting from the year when the Lisbon Strategy was launched, the study explores relevant policy initiatives, including for example reforms, developed during those seventeen years, a period considered sufficient to examine the impact of policy changes on the ground (Sabatier, 2005). In further narrowing down the case, it is useful to define the aspects or analytic categories of exploring teacher education policy and practice during this period of time. As mentioned in the introduction chapter, teacher education policy and practice is explored according to the following dimensions, which have been identified as fundamental EU teacher policy concepts (Stéger, 2014): (a) the creation of a teacher education continuum, meaning an overarching unity between initial teacher education, induction and continuing professional development; (b) the definition and use of teacher competences; and (c) the role of teacher educators. These analytic

43 categories will be further explained in the following chapter related to the European context of teacher education.

Last but not least, when thinking about binding the case of teacher education systems in the respective countries, mention should also be made of the level of education that the present study focuses on. Although teacher education encompasses the initial preparation and professional development of both primary and secondary school teachers, the research focus of the present study is limited to the education of general secondary school teachers. The term general secondary school teachers here means both lower and upper secondary school teachers (ISCED 2 & 3), teaching in general and not vocational schools. The specific level of education is chosen in order to make the case feasible to study and because contemporary teacher education reforms in the respective countries targeted the preparation of general secondary school teachers, as will be explained in the section of case selection.

Figure 4 below illustrates the binding of the case according to the different contextual levels of the teacher education policy ecosystem. Each level of analysis represents a research question of the present study. The European context of teacher education is firstly analysed, before moving to the case study analysis of teacher education systems in the respective countries, focusing particularly on policies and practices developed between 2000 and 2017.

Each country case analysis includes the example of policy enactment at one higher education institution which constitutes an embedded unit of analysis. Analysis at these different levels also corresponds to the circular understanding of Europeanisation as mutual adaptation and co-evolution process between levels. Moving away from strictly causal and linear models of implementation, the case is investigated within relevant contexts or nested environments, as described in the theoretical framework chapter.

Figure 4. Analysis levels of the teacher education policy ecosystem used in this study

Considering the type of the case study, this is better defined by a combination of what Merriam (1998) identifies as “descriptive” and “heuristic” case studies. Descriptive means that “the end product of a case study is a rich, ‘thick’ description of the phenomenon under study” (ibid. p.

29). Merriam (1998) understands thick description as “complete, literal description of the incident or entity being investigated” (pp. 29-30). Description is qualitative, that is it does not report findings in numerical data, and descriptive case studies take place over a period of time,

44 including as many variables as possible and illustrating their interconnection. In education, a descriptive case study “is one that presents a detailed account of the phenomenon under study”

(ibid., p. 38). As such, descriptive case studies can also be called “atheoretical”, in that “they are neither guided by established or hypothesized generalisations nor motivated by a desire to formulate general hypotheses” (Lijphart, 1971, p. 691). However, they are useful in trying to inform about aspects of education were little research has been conducted (Merriam, 1998).

Moreover, the specific case study can also be identified as heuristic, in that it tries to

“illuminate the reader’s understanding of the phenomenon under study” (ibid., p. 29), by extending the reader’s experience. Derived from Greek, heuristic means “to discover” and in this sense it can be defined as a method that comes from experience and supports the process of discovery or problem solving (Barlett & Vavrus, 2017b). Specifically, this study envisages to bring new knowledge about a well-researched phenomenon, such as Europeanisation, in a field that the specific concept has not previously been applied to in an elaborated way, such as teacher education. In this sense, the study can contribute to research in the broader field of Europeanisation and the specific field of teacher education, developing further the discussion of what constitutes the “Europeanness” of teacher education (Schratz, 2014). From the perspective of Yin (2009), this heuristic nature of the case study can also be termed

“exploratory” in that it tries to explore a phenomenon which serves as a point of interest to the researcher, opening up the door for further investigation in the future.