Understanding Teacher Education reports a two-and-a-half-year-long study that aimed to explore the experiences of student primary teachers learning to teach. Twenty student teachers, ten following a largely institution-based Postgraduate Certificate of Education course and ten following a school-based training course, were followed during their professional training and, in several cases, into their first year of teaching in schools. The students' difficulties, challenges and successes are documented along with the personal, organisational and curricular factors that facilitated or impeded their professional development. The book provides in-depth case studies of four of the student teachers and draws together similarities and differences in the experiences of them all in order to provide a detailed examination of the students' learning.