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This licentiate thesis takes its point of departure in a relational perspective on education, which means that the relationship between teacher and student is seen as fundamental for students’ knowledge- and personal development. The aim is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the teacher-student relationship in teacher education at national and local levels and the different meanings of closeness in this context. 

The theoretical basis of the study is curriculum theory-based didactics, where questions about knowledge content and teaching as offering meaning are central. The thesis consists of three separate studies. The first investigates closeness in the teacher-student relationship by means of a thematic conceptual analysis of the field of research in educational science on teacher-student relationships. Four different dimensions of closeness were identified: closeness as presence, closeness as care, closeness as feeling and closeness as responsibility. The results show a nuanced way of understanding closeness in the teacher-student relationship and that closeness is challenging for teachers in that it makes their relational work more complex.

The central question in curriculum theory - ‘What opportunities do students have to learn about the teacher-student relationship in teacher education?’ - is used as the point of departure in the analysis of educational policy documents at national and local levels. The second study investigates content knowledge at the national level and shows a limited and simplified view of the relationship between teacher and student. By using the dimensions of closeness as analytical tools, a multifaceted teacher-student relationship is constructed as an alternative meaning offering. In the third study, eleven Swedish universities participated in the study of curriculum documents at the local level. The analysis showed three types of knowledge content: relational theory, relational work and relational quality. In this study, the local documents together provided a broad range of knowledge content, but individually a reduced and simplified knowledge content. The study also confirmed the differences between universities in their teacher education programmes and that there are often discrepancies in the knowledge content that is offered.

The thesis as a whole contributes to a nuanced understanding of closeness in the teacher-student relationship and provides a set of theoretical tools that can be used in an analysis of different types of research studies. It also indicates that the policy documents relating to teacher education at the national and local levels contain simplified and limited notions about the teacher-student relationship and teachers’ relational work as knowledge content. This restricted knowledge content could limit student teachers’ abilities to create, build and maintain good and close teacher-student relationships and to address the relational challenges in their complex relational work.