The topic of teacher diversification relating to migration has come to the fore in recent years in many European countries and beyond. This Special Issue focuses on the ambivalent structures of recognition in national school systems regarding the situation of international teachers on the one side, as well as teachers with a family migration history on the other. Addressing these teachers’ experiences of migration discourses and structural barriers in the respective societies, without framing them as ‘the other’ teachers, is central to the intertwining of the teaching profession and migration. First, the topic of teacher diversification is introduced as a policy issue on a European level as well as on a national level in European countries. Second, recognition as an ambivalent theoretical concept is presented. Third, we use this perspective to point out dimensions of ambivalence of recognition for migrant teachers that become visible in the research presented in this Special Issue from Australia, Austria, Germany, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland: formal (non-)recognition of professional certificates and experiences of international teachers, social recognition and misrecognition as well as recognition as a (powerful) practice of subject constitution in the context of migration research.