Supporting Teaching Staff Development for Professional Education: Editorial

The status of teaching as a profession has been subject to contradictory forces since the beginning of modernity and remains an area of contestation (Ingersoll & Collins, 2018; Robinson, 2017). While several key characteristics typically define professions, none can be fully attributed to teaching. Professionals provide services to the public that require specialized knowledge and skills that are unavailable to non-specialists. To protect the public from substandard services, the state often requires members of established professions to acquire licenses before practicing, while licensing follows structured preparation programs. These programs often include induction processes that socialize novices into the field. They gradually expose beginning practitioners to the full range of responsibilities that are expected of competent professionals. At the individual level, autonomy and professional discretion are hallmarks of professional practice. At the organizational level, professional bodies determine preparation processes, set licensing requirements, and establish ethical and professional guidelines for good practice. Collectively, these characteristics typically confer high social status and income. Teaching, however, only partially meets these criteria.

The ambiguous professional status of teaching is evident across multiple dimensions. Teacher preparation and licensing are typically determined by the state, not by teacher organizations. Some countries demand that teachers acquire a master’s degree, while others offer alternative, shorter routes of certification that are primarily led by schools (Goodwin, 2021; Robinson, 2017). In the current era of teacher shortages, some countries even allow student teachers to teach before they complete their studies or assign teachers to subjects outside their field of expertise (Symeonidis et al., 2025). These practices further de-professionalize teaching. Teachers’ professional autonomy is constrained by policies that dictate core curricula, demand accountability, and evaluate teachers through their students’ achievements in standardized tests. Additionally, teachers’ social status is low in many countries, and their wages fall below those of other professionals with comparable levels of education, such as engineers or accountants (Ingersoll & Collins, 2018).

This vulnerable positioning of the teaching profession derives from multiple sources. Global neoliberal ideologies assert that public expenditure on education should be kept to a minimum and that teaching is a practical craft rather than an academic profession. Consequently, teacher education should be short and licensing criteria easy to manage. These beliefs, which de-professionalize teaching, are promoted by lobbyists, including private providers of alternative teacher preparation programs (Baltodano, 2012). Another source of pressure comes from state efforts to control educational systems. Such control stems from education’s perceived role in securing national competitiveness in the global knowledge-based economy. Accountability measures that significantly constrain teachers’ professional autonomy, such as standardized student testing and teacher evaluation systems, have been introduced (Goodwin, 2021). Beyond economic imperatives, governments also maintain control over curricula to ensure the transmission of cultural values and norms, further limiting teachers’ pedagogical discretion (Robinson, 2017). International organizations are influential stakeholders in education with major impact on national policies (Symeonidis, 2020). Some of their initiatives have contributed to teachers’ reduced autonomy and the de-professionalization of teaching. For example, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) introduced international standardized testing programs that prompted accountability-driven constraints. In contrast, other initiatives explicitly support teachers’ professionalism. For instance, UNESCO’s (2024) Global Report on Teachers advocates for empowering teachers as well-trained autonomous professionals who engage in lifelong learning and participate in decision-making. The report also calls for improved working conditions and enhanced social status.

In this contested area, this Special Issue sides with the call to strengthen teachers’ professionalism through acquisition of research-based knowledge. All the collected papers address teachers’ learning throughout their careers, targeting understudied areas.

Teaching staff’s professionalization begins with high-quality initial teacher education. The first contribution, “Pre-service teachers’ competencies in road safety education: design and validation of a questionnaire”, was authored by Ana Paredes, María-Jesús Fernández-Sánchez, and Susana Sánchez-Herrera (Contribution 1). It suggests a diagnostic tool that can identify student teachers’ knowledge about road safety and road safety education, as well as their behaviors as pedestrians and vehicle users. Based on this tool, teacher educators can assess their students’ learning needs in this area and design a road safety curriculum accordingly.

As they enter the profession, beginning teachers encounter a variety of challenges that thwart the consolidation of a positive professional identity and may motivate them to leave (Clandinin et al., 2015; Hong et al., 2018). Two contributions suggest ways to strengthen beginning teachers’ professional identity.

The second contribution, “Changing the concept of teaching English in novice English teachers through Attentive Teaching”, was authored by Yaron Schur and Shira Farby (Contribution 2). Using multimodal means of representation, the paper shows how teachers’ conceptualizations of themselves as teachers transformed due to a series of mediated interactions. The beginning teachers started to view themselves as agentive teachers who engage their students in learning English. The third contribution, “Beginning teachers with physical or sensory disabilities: challenges and solutions from a professional development workshop”, was authored by me (Contribution 3). It focuses on a unique group of beginning teachers, those with significant physical or sensory disabilities. The paper describes the challenges that they encounter and suggests methods that teacher educators can utilize to support them. Thus, both papers contribute to the professionalization of teacher educators in addition to beginning teachers.

Teachers’ careers span many years, sometimes more than three decades. Their professionalization throughout this period is of the utmost importance for the quality of their work and its adherence to scientific evidence and system-wide priorities. Six contributions to this Special Issue deal with different aspects of experienced teachers’ professional development programs, from the design stage to the implementation of the acquired knowledge and skills in teachers’ practice.

The potentials and challenges associated with AI use in education are at the center of educators’ interest today. Assessing teachers’ knowledge, skills, and learning needs is crucial for designing effective professional development programs in this area. The fourth contribution, “Developing and validating an AI-TPACK assessment framework: enhancing teacher educators’ professional practice through authentic artifacts”, was authored by Liat Eyal (Contribution 4). The paper suggests an easy-to-use diagnostic tool that evaluates teachers’ knowledge and skills in four areas: using and creating AI tools (AI Knowledge), designing learning experiences with AI (AI Pedagogical Knowledge), presenting and creating content with AI (AI Content Knowledge), and integrating AI into curriculum design (Integration). Based on this tool, the paper presents four profiles of teachers, which could be helpful in designing professional development programs for each of them.

The fifth contribution, “Group goals in teacher team meetings”, was authored by Miriam Babichenko, Dana Vedder-Weiss, Rinat Cohen, and Yariv Feniger (Contribution 5). The paper explores teachers’ motivations for team meetings and finds that mastery goals (i.e., learning from each other) and social goals (i.e., establishing a sense of belonging) are the most prevalent ones. These findings suggest that practicing teachers wish to enhance their professional knowledge, and that collaborative learning might be particularly useful, as it satisfies both needs.

The sixth contribution, “Tandem teaching for quality physical education: primary teachers’ preparedness and professional growth in Slovakia and North Macedonia”, was authored by Gabriela Luptáková, Biljana Popeska, Hristina Ristevska, Tibor Balga, Ilija Klincarov, and Branislav Antala (Contribution 6). The paper suggests that general teachers can gain professional knowledge in physical education through extensive co-teaching with a physical education teacher. This method is applied in Slovakia and North Macedonia to address shortages in physical education teachers and has mitigated the effects of out-of-field teaching. Notably, this method addresses mastery, as well as the social goal, as recommended by the fifth contribution (Contribution 5).

The seventh contribution, “Immersing in Lesson Study in Japan: International educators learning through cross-cultural observation”, was authored by Naoko Matsuda and Tad Watanabe (Contribution 7). It is based on the conviction that effective professional development engages teachers in collaborative hands-on activities that target concrete issues of practice that they wish to address (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017). The paper examines how teachers gained knowledge about lesson study, professional learning communities, and math didactics by observing how the method is enacted in Japan.

Teachers’ professionalization entails both professional learning and implementation. Two contributions highlight the importance of context to successful enactment of teachers’ professionalism. The eighth contribution, “Supporting teacher professionalism for inclusive education: integrating cognitive, emotional, and contextual dimensions”, was authored by Michal Nissim and Fathi Shamma (Contribution 8). It recommends designing professional development programs that combine knowledge, practice, and emotional preparedness, alongside culturally responsive approaches tailored to minority communities.

The ninth contribution, “Leadership styles and remote work dynamics”, was authored by Asmahan Masry-Herzallah, Hanan Sarhan, and Zehavit Gross (Contribution 9). It demonstrates how leadership style and organizational characteristics coalesce with teachers’ technological self-efficacy to affect teachers’ attitudes to remote work.

The Special Issue concludes with three literature reviews. The tenth contribution, “Integrating systems thinking into sustainability education: an overview with educator-focused guidance”, was authored by Roee Peretz (Contribution 10). It focuses on complex socio-scientific issues and demonstrates how systemic thinking can be taught in this area. Aware of the complexity of those issues, on the one hand, and the constrained, time-pressured curriculum, on the other, the author suggests that professional development programs provide teachers with ready-to-use materials.

The eleventh contribution, “Empowering teacher professionalism through personalized continuing professional learning: a systematic literature review using a multidimensional approach to self-assessment and growth”, was authored by Orit Avidov-Ungar (Contribution 11). After exploring characteristics of effective professional learning programs, it suggests a self-assessment tool that can assist teachers is setting goals for their professional development and aligning them with the educational system’s needs.

In a similar fashion, the twelfth contribution attempts to identify the characteristics of effective professional development programs in vocational education. The contribution is entitled “Promoting effective vocational education and training teacher’s professional development and its transfer to practice: a systematic review” and was authored by Gunta Siliņa-Jasjukeviča, Inese Lūsēna-Ezera, Dzintra Iliško, and Svetlana Surikova (Contribution 12). This contribution focuses on vocational teachers that need to develop their professionalism, not only as educators but also as field specialists.

Acknowledging that professional development is complex and multidimensional, both papers emphasize the importance of addressing individual, institutional, and policy-level needs, as well as reflective practice, collaborative learning, and the integration of digital tools.

Together, the twelve contributions to this Special Issue offer a rich, research-informed foundation for supporting teachers’ professionalism across the full arc of their careers, from initial preparation through decades of practice. They span diverse contexts, methodologies, and professional domains, yet converge on a shared conviction: that teachers are professionals whose knowledge, skills, and agency must be developed and sustained through context-sensitive, evidence-based learning that embraces reflection and collaboration. However, advancing teachers’ professionalism requires continued attention from scholars and policymakers to the multiple conditions that either enable or constrain it: teachers’ autonomy, working conditions, and social recognition.