Professional boundaries in teacher-student relationship in Chinese context: thinking through Confucian role-based ethics

• In Event: Working within differences: boundary and boundary practices in Chinese schools

Proposal

Teacher-student relationship (TSR) has been regarded as one of the central components leading to successful teaching and learning (Hughes & Cavell, 1999; Roorda et al., 2017; Quin, 2017). The majority of previous researches have explored different kinds of boundaries embedded in TSR, such as ethical boundaries (Aultman, Williams-Johnson, & Schutz, 2009; Andrzejewski & Davis, 2008), power boundaries (Plaut, 1993), and emotional boundaries (Bernstein-Yamashiro & Noam, 2013). However, professional boundaries in TSR have not been sufficiently addressed; moreover, limited attention has been paid to non-Western perspectives that may enrich and deepen our understandings of TSR. Being aware of these, this paper aims to elaborate the professional boundaries of the TSR in the light of Confucianism.

This paper specifically takes Confucian role-based ethics as the theoretical perspective. It attaches great importance on interpersonal relationships that are based on one’s ethical roles in concrete scenarios (Rosemont Jr. & Ames, 2016; Rosemont Jr., 2016; Fingarette, 1983). This does not mean that roles and relationships are given modes within which a person is embedded and fixated. Rather, they are essentially formative, developed from a person’s constant interactions with others and the circumstances (Ames, 2011, 2021). In this sense, a person takes an action first, and then adjust their roles and relationships according to their lived experiences in real life. As a result, the appropriate interpersonal relatedness would be achieved. Confucian role-based ethics enables us to understand the professional boundaries in TSR as dynamic and indeterminate, which is thus bidirectional and open-ended (Ames & Rosemont Jr., 2016; Wang, 2020).

In China, teachers are often required to accomplish many tasks that seem to be not directly related to their professional roles, which has been likely to lead to confusion, complains, and professional exhaustion (Li, 2010; Zhang & Yan, 2022; Wang & Ning, 2018; Long et al., 2021). This has necessitated the clarification of professional boundaries in TSR in Chinese context. As argued in this paper, the dynamic and indeterminate nature of TSR requires teachers to adjust their roles according to the different requirements of the situation. Moreover, they are expected to appropriately navigate the extent of, and approach to, interpersonal interactions with students at the individual and group levels, such as how well should a teacher and a student know each other, whether or how much they should involve in each other’s private life, and what can be considered justice or fair in a one-to-many relationship. By reflecting on diverse contested situations regarding professional boundaries, this paper argues that the establishment of TSR should comply with the professional nature of teachers, which is deeply rooted in the ideal of ‘person-making’ (Zhao, 2016).

Author

• Yuxi JIN, East China Normal University