Development and Vulnerability of Teacher Leadership Identity: Chinese Perspective

• In Event: 21.062 - MTCC Roundtable Session Six
  In Roundtable Session: 21.062-1 - Teacher Leadership Practices for Equity and Engagement in Schools and Communities

Abstract

Teacher leadership is very important to successful educational reform. The study aims to investigate the process that Chinese teacher leaders construct their leadership identity. Case study method is adopted and data are mainly gathered from the interviews of school teachers. The study found that teacher leaders were living under two conflicting policy voices. On one hand, the reformists, with the endorsement from the Government, put forward their discourse forcefully. On the other hand, teachers felt the importance of meeting the demands of the parents and the administrators in securing success in public examinations. These conflicting demands give them opportunity to development their new identity as teacher leaders but also make it harder to enact teacher leadership in the future.

Author

• Shuang Zhang