Initial teacher education: meanings of quality for Australia and Brazil

ABSTRACT This work investigates the meanings of quality in initial teacher education evidenced by the accreditation processes in Australia and Brazil. It uses dialogism to highlight points of tension between the quality of teacher education declared in the reforms implemented equally by Australia and Brazil and the quality measured by their respective national accreditation processes for the programs that develop this education. It is descriptive research, with a qualitative approach, and adopts reports, laws, standards, statistics and other official records as data sources. It concludes that the countries under study have adopted professional standards for teachers with similar content. However, evidence about the quality of this program materializes meanings of quality that do not adhere to what was originally intended.