Last but not least, the author expresses gratitude to Tracey Burns, who has supported the work and provided various comments and input throughout the different phases of this paper. In particular, it investigates what aligning teacher education programmes to standards really mean, and what conception of educational sciences is reflected in the standards and the curriculum. Analyses suggest that alignment, as an explicit, direct and consistent correspondence, is difficult to achieve, in part due to different conceptualisations of professional knowledge.