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This brief history of the International Study Association on Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) documents developments and trends during the decade 2013–2023. To situate recent ISATT history, we begin with an overview of the association's first 30 years (1983–2012). The dominant theme of those early years was developing ISATT as a recognized and influential professional organization connecting researchers on teaching and teacher education from a growing list of nations and regions of the world. During the most recent decade, there has been a concerted effort toward broad internationalization through biennial conferences and regional meetings, and a growing network of national representatives from across the world. Also, the ISATT journal, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, the journal, which began in 1995, has published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles written by more than 1000 authors and coauthors, contributing to a growing body of knowledge about teaching and teacher education in many cultures. In the last 20 years and especially in the past 10, the locations of ISATT meetings have become significantly more diverse, following a trend of greater internationalization compared with ISATT's European and North American beginnings. At the same time, the number of ISATT members remains stable and small thereby preserving a collegial and collaborative tone in our exchanges. In sum, ISATT's recent decade finds the association intellectually healthy, successful in managing the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, and enriched by the proliferation of multinational points of view and styles of research.

This volume, From Teacher Thinking to Teachers and Teaching: The Evolution of a Research Community, captures advances that have occurred in the thirty years that the International Study Association on Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) organization has been in existence (1983–2013). ISATT occupies an important place in educational history. It is the international birthplace of the paradigm shift that occurred in the field of education in the 1980s as well as the organization that helped transition the study of teacher thinking to the study of teachers and teaching in all of its complexities. ISATT, which began with a handful of members, now has a membership that hails from 45 countries. ISATT’s near-global representation shows how the organization’s reach has expanded over three decades.

The first part of this chapter addresses the history and development of the International Study Association of Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) and its engagement with the global educational community. We provide an account of the context and background against which ISATT developed as well as information about the founders’ orientations and the actions that led to ISATT’s birth. The second part of the chapter uses patterns of topic focus as graphic indicators of the evolution of ISATT’s research interests expressed through publication titles.

This chapter presents a personal account of ISATT from the perspective of the first elected chair of the organization. In this work, the 1980s backdrop against which ISATT came into being is instantiated. Further to this, a panoramic view of the literature is offered and an “oral history” approach is used. To end, an archival document – a selection read at the 1988 biennial conference held near Sherwood Forest in Nottingham, England – pays tribute to Rob Halkes, the person who, with the assistance of key others, birthed the international study association which is now globally known as ISATT.