The paper discusses the various expectations facing teacher education today in Western societies. These challenges, to some degree mutually contradictory, include the eternal problem of bridging pedagogical theorizing and school practice. Another challenge is the incompatibility of professional relevance and scientific relevance. Teacher education departments in many countries belong to universities, and are thus also evaluated according to the same criteria as any university departments, i e the academic standards of education, and the quality of research contributions. However, these requirements are not identical with the expectations of the community and the schools, emphasising for instance education for democracy and equity. The paper suggests the need for international comparative research on teacher education departments’ strategies to cope with these contradictory challenges.