Abstract
At this international symposium on the professionalism of teacher educators an extensive review study on the roles, accompanying behavior and the factors that support the development of these roles and behavior will be presented. Six roles of teacher educators were distinguished, from which three are considered to be major: teacher of teachers, coach and researcher. This presentation will be followed by three in depth empirical research contributions of scholars from the UK, Israël and The Netherlands, each of them on one of the major roles. At the end of these presentations there will be a general discussion about developments in the roles and major themes for future research in this field.

Session summary

The international symposium on the professionalism of teacher educators has the objective to discuss (developments in the research on) the major roles and the professional development of teacher educators and to identify some major themes for future research in this field.

In the first part of the session a recently conducted extensive review study, based on 160 articles out of a selection of more than 1250, on the roles, accompanying behavior and the factors that support the development of these roles and behavior will be presented. Based on this analysis six roles of teacher educators were distinguished: 1) teacher of teachers, 2) coach, 3)researcher, 4)curriculum developer, 5) gatekeeper, and 6) broker. The first three are considered as major roles.
For each of these major roles critical features are identified and related to the research about the accompanying behavior of teacher educators. These professional roles are liable to continuous change. School-based teacher education changed the role of teacher educators in schools and universities and gave rise to the new role of broker. The changing place of teacher education within universities and de development of practitioner research as a distinct kind of research has influenced the role of research and scholarship in the teacher education profession (Borg, 2011; Wilson, 2006).

This presentation will be followed by three contributions of scholars from different countries. They will present in depth empirical research based on mixed methods with respect to one of the three major roles of teacher educators. Research from the UK will be presented on the (developments in the) role of teacher of teachers, research from Israël will focus on the role of mentor and finally a Dutch case study about the development of the role of scholar/researcher in a new university setting will be presented.

The scholarly or scientific significance of this symposium is that it will be held at the moment that during the last decades the profession of teacher educator has emerged as a distinct profession and research theme (Clarke, 2001; Murray & Male, 2005; Swennen, Jones & Volman, 2010). Special issues of journals, books and encyclopaedic articles have been published about the profession and the professional development of teacher educators (European Journal of Teacher Education, 2005; Teaching and Teaching Education, 2005; Professional Development in Education, 2010; Swennen & Van der Klink, 2009; Lunenberg, 2010; Smith, 2011). Professional standards for teacher educators have been developed (ATE, 2008; Koster & Dengerink, 2008). The amount of selfstudies is accumulating (Cochran-Smith, 2005). Now is the time to evaluate these developments in the profession and the research about the profession in this field and also to discuss how teacher educators can keep up their roles in accordance with the needs of the education of future teachers