Introduction

A longstanding issue in educational research and practice is that although teacher educators are acknowledged as “key players” in educational systems for their impact on the quality of teaching and learning in schools (European Commission, 2013; Vanassche et al., 2015), their professional status, including the unique nature of their work and learning, has been largely neglected in research and professional development initiatives (White & Berry, 2022). Partly, this is because teacher educators have only relatively recently been acknowledged as a separate occupational group with a unique and specialized knowledge base (Swennen et al., 2010) and partly also, because researchers and policymakers have focused their attention on the structures of teacher education and on relationships between teacher education programs and student achievement in schools, rather than on the role of teacher educators themselves (White & Berry, 2022). However, over the past two decades, this situation has begun to change, with a growing recognition that the work of teacher educators is diverse, complex, and specialized; involves supporting teachers throughout their professional careers, and “requires the cooperation of a wide range of actors” (European Commission, 2013, p. 7). Recognition of a “range of actors” involved in the education of teachers has also helped to shed light on the recurring question of who a teacher educator is, noting it involves different roles to support different stages of learning to teach. Studies continue to further tease out this question, given that being a teacher educator has been identified as a “hidden profession” (Livingston, 2014, p. 218), an “accidental career” (Mayer et al., 2011), and involves “a precarious process” (Berry & Forgasz, 2016; White & Berry, 2022).