A version of this article was developed as a background paper for the 2013 Inquiry, by the British Educational Research Association and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, into the contribution of research in teacher education and school improvement, and can be found in the BERA website (www.bera.ac.uk).

A neglected variabl-e in the search for factors that promote long-term weight loss is the influence of significant others. sixty-eight overweight \^romen \^/ere assigned to five treatment conditions: l_) cooperative spouse: spouses attended all therapy sessions with the subjects and were trained in model-ing, monitoring, and reinfoïcement techniques; 2) wives alone: subjects underwent the basic behavioralprogram by themselves; 3) nonparticipating spouse: spouses were told not to particpate in any way in the subjectsr behavioral program; 4) al-ternative treatment: subjects discussed personality dynamics and their rel-ationship to weight ross; and 5) d.elayed treatment control-.There were no significant differences in weight ross among any of the conditions at posttreatment. of the three behavioral-conditions, only the co-operative spouse cond.ition lost significantly more weight than the alternative treatment at the 3-,6-, and l-2-month follovr-ups; the nonparticipating spouse condition lost more weiqht than the alternative treatment at the final follow-up. The co-operative spouse condítion lost significantry more weight than the wives alone condiÈion at the l2-month fol-Io\d-up. Both the co-operative spouse and the nonparticipating spouse conditions maintained their weiqht Iosses at the final follow-up, while the wives alone condition regained some weight. The absence of significant differences between lþs çe-6nara-tive spouse and the nonparticipating spouse conditions suggests that insÈructing spouses not to saboÈage their wives' efforts may be as effective for long-term maintenanca aq e¡rìr¡alr¡ +-aining thixn to aid their wives. Pretreatment wej-ghts \^/ere negatively associated \nrith the weight reduction quotient at the 3-and 6-month foIlow-ups, while ¡:-i.;ì,:-: );1, the number of pounds overweight was negatively associated with the weight reduction quotient at the 6-month follow-up. Of the measures of behavior change, spouse support was positively associated with outcome at the 6-month follow-up. rt was al_so found that subiects who consumed a smaller nunber of calories rel-ative to their prescribed.

Recent years have seen a concerted and systematic move towards a school‐led system of initial teacher training in England. The role of universities, and particularly their part in engaging new teachers with educational theory, has been radically challenged. Only around half of new entrants to the profession now follow university‐based training routes. These seismic changes to teacher education have been driven through with a minimum of formal consultation or public debate. In this urgent and compelling pamphlet, Janet Orchard and Christopher Winch argue for a conception of teachers as professionals who require a deep understanding of the conceptual, empirical and normative dimensions of educational practice. They explain why university education departments are better placed than schools to help beginning teachers acquire that understanding. And they propose a significant expansion of initial teacher education, with full licensure contingent on completion of both a preliminary teaching qualification and a higher grade apprenticeship in the first two years of employment. Teachers need educational theory because they must understand what they are doing and why they are doing it, and must be able to think intelligently about how to do it better. At present, universities have the capacity and the expertise to meet this need. But they may not have it for much longer if the shift to school‐based teacher education continues unabated.

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