In the international arena, organizations like the OECD and the European Union have increased their efforts in the field of educational policy (e.g. Grek et al. 2009; Grek & Ozga 2010; Dale & Robertson 2009). A ‘global education policy’, circulating, transformed and ‘borrowed’ between international education policy arenas and nations (c.f. Steiner-Khamsi 2012), has emphasised concepts such as ‘effective teaching’ and ‘teacher quality’ which has had the effect that teacher training has become a focal point for policy interest.

The aim with this paper is instead to understand transnational policy texts from a cosmopolitan perspective. The purpose is two-fold: to analyze the characteristics of teacher education and the role of the teacher in transnational authoritative texts from a cosmopolitan perspective; and to analyze the field of tension between an economic cosmopolitan approach and a moral cosmopolitan approach.  

Drawing on the perspective that education is a basic need and a fundamental right for all (Nussbaum 2000, Sen 1999), and “the key to all the human capabilities” (Nussbaum 2007), we can ask, from a cosmopolitan perspective, which 'sets of capabilities'  a specific conception of teacher education promote.  The capabilities approach focus on human agencies and on the removal of substantial unfreedoms through education (Garnett 2009), by including the possibilities of agency in relation to material and social resources as well as issues of identity (Walker & Unterhalter 2007). Both Nussbaum and Sen are seeking to create a space for understanding a sustainable quality of life as what people are actually able to do or to be; their actual capabilities.

The text analysis is based on three main documents, and a number of follow up documents linked to each of these key documents from the OECD, the EU and McKinsey&Company.

The result shows the centrality of the concept of reflection: as ‘best practice’ in a top-down perspective or as ‘reflexivity’ as a cosmopolitan orientation from a bottom-up perspective. The latter includes recognizing the relation between the well-known and the foreign, and a historical understanding of the teaching situation, the teachers find themselves in.