A Chinese and a Swedish preschool teacher education programme were examined in search for commonalities and differences of the curriculum decision-making considerations involved in the respective programme revision process. Findings include: (1) the two programmes have shifted orientations and become similar, yet there was no fundamental paradigmatic shift after the revisions; (2) the Swedish programme has been heavily influenced by political agenda and national curriculum guidelines, while the Chinese one gives considerable attention to the opinions from the preschool circle; (3) the discussion of programme revision revolved around the diverse views of quality preschool education and teacher education; and (4) a strong relationship between the institutional/organisational features identified and the programme orientations was found. The empirical data suggested teacher educators' professional views of quality preschool education and organisational/institutional characteristics are critical to the curriculum decision-making in the specific contexts. (author abstract)