Student teachers’ classroom management during the school internship

Classroom management (CM) is one of the core issues in student teachers’ learning. In teacher education, however, CM often has a marginal place in the curriculum. This is striking, since most student teachers struggle with this competence, especially during their internship. This study investigated the intended CM internship curriculum. The intended curriculum for CM is mapped by analysing curricular documents (written curriculum), by interviewing teacher educators (ideal/preferred curriculum) and by comparing these findings to topics suggested by literature (theoretical curriculum). A variety of potential CM topics emerges from the literature, but limited and implicit attention for CM was found in the written curriculum. For the preferred curriculum, teacher educators recognised CM as essential, considering student teachers’ relationship with pupils’ as the core of CM. In addition, they stressed the practical side of CM: encouraging student teachers to get experience and expand their repertoire by teaching independently.