Teacher Leadership in Nordic and East Asian Nations

• In Event: International Education Across the Years

Abstract

Over the last twenty years, teacher quality has become a central concern of national governments. Teacher leadership has emerged as a key factor in improving professional practice. However, the construct of teacher leadership remains ill defined. Our research focuses on how national governments used polices to promote or shape teacher leadership in two regional groupings of nations: Nordic countries (i.e., Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden) and the East Asian group (i.e., Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan). We found that while all nations engaged in teacher-focused reforms there was no clear vision and measure on developing teacher leadership. National differences in teacher’s roles and career trajectories highlight the difficulty of creating a unified construct of teacher leadership.

Authors

• Gerald K. LeTendre, The Pennsylvania State University

• Hansol Woo, Samsung Global Research