Nonpositional Teacher Leadership: Evidence From Teachers

• In Event: 60.083 - Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 60.083-18 - Teacher Leadership for School and Community Transformation

Abstract

This paper explores a theory of teacher leadership that is embedded in teachers’ own narratives about their leadership. It offers a vision of professionality that transcends current limitations experienced in both OECD countries and the developing world. The narratives arise from teachers’ participation in a series of programmes associated with the International Teacher Leadership (ITL) initiative, a large scale action research project in which researchers, social activists and teachers in 14 countries collaborated over a 3 year period to develop and evaluate an innovatory approach to supporting teacher leadership. The distinctive approach is one which disregards organisational hierarchies, positions or roles of responsibility. Underpinning the work discussed in this paper is the assumption that story-construction and story-telling are distinctive features of the human condition; as Bruner says, humankind is characterised by the capacity to create ‘a record of agentive encounters with the world’ (1996: 36). Stories enable us to make sense of the world and our experience in it. However, the project discussed in this paper is not characterised as narrative inquiry (Clandinin and Connolly, 2000) nor does it offer a grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) based on an analysis of the narratives. Instead the narratives collectively explicate a theory about teacher professionality and educational transformation. This theory has been articulated in a number of publications (eg Frost, 2012), but more importantly, it is enacted and operationalised by teachers and those who facilitate teacher leadership within the sphere of the ITL initiative. In this paper, the theory will be presented and discussed with illustrations and exemplifications drawn from the evidence collected by partners in European countries as diverse as Turkey, Portugal, the UK and Serbia. The evidence base that supports the non-positional teacher leadership approach is already substantial and growing as new networks are formed within the International Teacher Leadership network. This evidence is compelling and timely in the light of the ‘global learning crisis’ identified in the recent UNESCO report (2014) which monitors the extent to which UN development goals set in 2000 have been met. It offers hope for a new conception of the role of the teacher in relation to social transformation.

Authors

• David C. Frost, University of Cambridge

• Gisela Redondo-Sama, University of Cambridge