Abstract: Pre-service teacher education is a core issue in the field of teacher education policy, practice and research. In China, with the transition of teacher education, the gradual diversification of paradigms in the field of education research, and the focus on evidence-based policy decision-making and educational practice, the research outcomes of pre-service teacher education are gradually enriched. Based on the analysis framework of “teacher education research as a social practice”, this study comprehensively reviewed the empirical studies on pre-service teacher education published in Chinese journals during 2015—2019. It summarized explicit content of pre-service teacher education research, including research participants, research methods, researcher identity, research topics, research findings, etc. And the study further analyzes the underlying assumptions, logic of argument, micropolitics, quality of evidence and assumed implications in the researches. As revealed, in the past five year, the empirical research on pre-service teacher education and policy reform in China has relatively been fragmented, and there is a lack of response to changes in the social, political and economic environment and the demand for educational reform. On the whole, although the current research on pre-service teacher education highlights “practice”, it also suffers from an insufficiency in the theoretical teacher education curriculum. The existing research has the limits of repetitive research content, insufficient localised exploration and varied research quality. For example, apart from the weak standard of designs, the prominent single method and insufficient ethical concern, the logic of argument needs to be strengthened. In the future, we should enrich the topics of pre-service teacher education research, expand the team of researchers, and broaden the types of research methods.

Key words: pre-service teacher education, empirical research, systematic literature review