Attention distribution as boundary work: A case study of exchange teachers in China

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

Proposal

Since 2005, Chinese teachers in primary and secondary schools have been required to obtain exchange experiences in other schools. The purpose of this ‘exchange policy’ (jiaoliu lungang zhengce) is to balance the education inequity amongst different schools within the county or district area. It claims that such rotation of high-quality teachers can narrow the urban-rural gap in terms of teaching quality (Wang et al., 2017). The implementation of this policy has attracted much scholarly attention on the effects of policy (Li & Zhao, 2022; Qiao, 2022), institutional challenges (Cao & Lu, 2018), and teachers’ negotiation of their identities in the new working context (Liu & Shen, 2017). Although it intends to improve the education quality especially for relatively underdeveloped schools, unintended effects are more complicated than ideal policy designs. This paper examines how and why ‘exchange teachers’ in China distribute their attention during compulsory rotations.

This paper uses institutional logics as theoretical perspective to explore the politics of attention distribution among exchange teachers. Institutional logics is defined as ‘systems of cultural elements (values, beliefs, and normative expectations) by which people, groups, and organizations make sense of and evaluate their everyday activities, and organize those activities in time and space’ (Haveman & Gualtieri, 2017). Theoretical debates on institutional logics frequently focus on place and time (Thornton et al., 2012). While traditional literature placed importance on the role of places in maintaining institutions and rituals, recent literature has focused on the role of places as factors that facilitate institutional change (Suddaby, 2015). Moreover, literature shows that individuals and organizations confer and interact in fields with different timeframes and temporal logics, thus time should be considered a critical lens for exploring institutional experiences (Granqvist & Gustafsson, 2016). In this sense, attention distribution is useful for enrich current debates on place, time and institutional practice.

This study is part of a major school improvement project in the local area. Regular field trips had been conducted in 2019, 2020 and 2022. We went to the case schools to sit in classes, interview teachers and other school staff members. Some of these interviewees have been part of the compulsory rotation since 2020. Thus, we had the opportunity to explore their experiences as an exchange teacher in the new working environment. By analyzing the formal interviews, observations, field notes and policy texts, this paper highlights how exchange teachers experienced and interpreted some symbolic boundaries defined by binary perceptions such as ‘new-old (xin-jiu)’, ‘inter-outer (nei-wai)’ and ‘difference-sameness (yi-tong)’, and how they reconstructed and negotiated their identities, desires, and professional developments within different school contexts. It argues that attention distribution is not individual. Rather, it is a boundary work rooted in both institutional logics in schools and social discourses at large.

Authors

• Xuan Dong

• Xiaoyan Lv, Department of Education，East China Normal University