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In this paper we explore the phenomenon of "shattered images" in the learning to teach process. For our presentation and discussion we draw on: reflective accounts of preservice teachers written prior to, during, and following periods of field experience; our experiences as teachers and teacher educators; and, on our own and other research on teacher education and development, particularly on our ongoing work which focuses on field experiences. We highlight and examine some of the discrepancies between preservice teachers' expectations and experiences, identify and discuss circumstances contributing to the discrepancies, and consider ways in which such inconsistencies might be taken into account in order to develop and maintain productive preservice teacher preparation programs. 'Most names used are pseudonyms. Some preservice teachers, however, wished to be identified by their own names.

Our purposes in writing this article are to reflect on our own research practice and to raise for discussion some of the issues associated with “alternative” approaches to studying teaching and teacher development. Situating our work within a personal and contextual research framework that is built on the foundations of a hermeneutic perspective, we briefly review the progress towards alternative approaches to research on teaching and teacher development, and then focus on the researcher-teacher relationship in discussing collaboration in partnership research. We use three organizing frameworks: (a) examples of our own research with teachers; (b) a matrix displaying the phases of research activities and the roles of researcher and teacher; and (c) a matrix displaying the phases and scope of the issues in teacher development partnership research that suggest a series of guiding questions that we think need to be asked at the outset and throughout any inquiry.