This paper emphasizes the status given to professional teacher-training in educational legislation during the last 40 years, pointing out elements which interfered in law changing its focus: if in the beginning emphasis was put mainly on the indication of the formal patterns required, as time passes by, legislation concentrates more on training itself, which is to be effected through undergraduate studies. The argumentation centers on Brazilian society's struggle for the reconstruction of democracy, context in which the debate about the quality of apprenticeship has increased and the professional dimension of teaching has been rescued. At last, the paper focuses on the discussion about the locus of professional teacher-training. This debate expresses once more the historical tensions between the academic and governmental instances.