These thirteen countries – Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the Russian Federation, Spain, and the United Kingdom – were selected, on the one hand, for geopolitical reasons and, on the other hand, because they enabled us to address characteristic differences in training concepts. Drafting the first questionnaires on the initial training of history teachers in 1998, we were not very sure about the relevant issues and topics to enquire about. In the first few months of this survey we knew little more than what was going on at our own training institution and at those institutions with which we already had long-standing contacts. Over the last two years we not only learned to ask the more relevant questions, but we also acquired a profound knowledge of the relevant structures behind the initial answers. Discussions with colleagues from other countries at the seminars in Vienna (April 1998)² and Prague (June 1999)³ helped us to put our own views and ideas about the topic in perspective – and various colleagues told us that their experience had been similar.
