From the Sacred Nation to the Unified Globe: Changing Leitmotifs in Teacher Training in the Western World, 1870–2010

The educational turn of the late eighteenth century, nation building of the nineteenth century, and efforts to promote global unity after the two world wars had effects not only on educational organizations, policies, and materials, but also on the manner with which the major actors in the world of education – namely, teachers – were trained. The leitmotifs that emerged in teacher training reflected the major cultural concerns of each era: in the nineteenth century, this was national uniqueness and supremacy; in the postwar period, it was internationalization and global standardization. These leitmotifs were associated with the emergence of particular academic subfields and heavily shaped pedagogical ideals. In the era of nation building, the history of education dominated teacher education. In the context of the Cold War, teacher training was aligned with a new internationalist and scientific paradigm.