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Background/Context In many countries, there are multiple studies intended to improve initial teacher education. These have generally focused on pieces of teacher education rather than wholes, and have used an underlying linear logic. It may be, however, that what is needed are new research questions and theoretical frameworks that account for wholes, not just parts, and take complex, rather than reductionist perspectives. Purpose This article examines the challenges and the promises of complexity theory as a framework for teacher education research. One purpose is to elaborate the basic tenets of complexity theory, summarize its previous uses, and identify key challenges. A second purpose is to propose a new research platform that combines complexity theory with critical realism (CT-CR) and prompts a new set of empirical questions and research methods. Research Design Drawing on scholarship from sociology and education, the underlying design—or logic—of this analytic essay is this: explanation of the basic tenets of complexity theory applied to teacher education, assessment of previous research informed by complexity theory, response to the major epistemological and methodological challenges involved in using complexity theory as a research framework, and proposal of a new set of questions and methods. Findings/Results Complexity theory is appealing to teacher education researchers who want to avoid simplistic and reductionist perspectives. However, most previous complexity research has not addressed the critiques: the proclivity of complexity theory for retrospective description; the assertion that, given its rejection of linear causality, complexity theory cannot provide causal explanations with implications for practice; and the charge that complexity-informed research cannot deal with the values and power inequalities inherent in the normative enterprise of education. Integrating complexity theory with critical realism provides a way to address these fundamental challenges. Building on this new platform, the essay proposes a new set of empirical questions about initial teacher education along with several innovative research methods to address those questions. Conclusions/Recommendations This essay concludes that the combination of complexity theory and critical realism offers a unique platform for teacher education research, which has theoretical consistency, methodological integrity, and practical significance. The essay recommends that its proposed new empirical questions and methods may have the capacity to show us where to look and what processes to trace as teacher candidates learn to enact practice that enhances the learning of all students, including those not well-served by the current system.

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All over the world, countries are paying close attention to how teachers are recruited, selected, and prepared for the nation's schools. Increasingly, teachers are expected to teach all students to high standards at the same time that they play a major role in meeting rising expectations regarding social equity. Preparing teachers for these challenges is among the most pressing and complex tasks in teacher education. In response to these and other challenges, some initial teacher education programs now include among their major goals preparing teachers to teach for social justice, work toward equity and access for all students, and/or challenge inequities in existing educational systems and policies. This article focuses on three initial teacher education programs-one each in the United States, New Zealand, and Ireland. Although these programs differ from one another in many ways, they also share some goals related to teaching for social justice and equity. The article examines longitudinal survey data regarding teacher candidates' scores on the "Learning to Teach for Social Justice-Beliefs" scale, which was designed to measure candidates' endorsement of beliefs consistent with the concept of teaching for social justice. For each of the three research sites, the article analyzes: (a) demographic and teacher quality contexts, (b) initial teacher education program goals related to social justice/social equity, and (c) the results of surveys administered to teacher candidates at entry to and exit from the programs. The article concludes with discussion of learning to teach for social justice as a cross-cultural concept. The Convergence of Two Global TrendsWe begin with analysis of two global trends that converged during the last decade of the 20 th century and the first decade of the 21 st . This convergence is the context for the empirical research reported here. In many countries around the world, there is now unprecedented emphasis on teacher quality with extremely high expectations for teacher performance (Cochran-Smith, 2005;Furlong, Cochran-Smith & Brennan, 2009; Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2005). Based on the assumption that education and the economy are tightly linked, it is now assumed in many countries that teachers can-and should-teach all students to world-class standards, serve as the linchpins in educational reform, and produce a well-qualified labor force to preserve or boost a nation's position in the global economy (Darling-Hammond, 2010;McKenzie & Santiago, 2005). This perspective, which Spring (2010) calls "the human capital paradigm," assumes that a nation's place in the knowledge economy depends on the quality of its educational system and that the primary purpose of education, which