Making bricks without straw?: Chinese vocational teachers’ responses toward in-service professional standards

• In Event: Equity, Inclusion, and Marginalized Students

Proposal

Educational policies worldwide have promoted teachers’ continuing professional development and updated their in-service professional competencies (e.g., knowledge and skills) to meet the intricate needs of social change, economic pressure, and technological development (Darling-Hammond, 2017). Vocational teachers need broader and more up-to-date continuing professional development than the general subject (e.g., math) teachers (Vähäsantanen, 2015). Those working at the intersection of vocational and educational practices need to update their educational and vocational competencies required in the workplace and approaches to integrating vocational competence in teaching (Ballangrud & Nilsen, 2021; Hautz, 2022).

Much research has explored how in-service teachers, including vocational teachers, respond toward continuing professional development (Ballangrud & Nilsen, 2021; Gore & Rickards, 2021; Law, 2003; Vähäsantanen & Eteläpelto, 2009) and how general schools’ pre-service and beginning teachers having no teaching certificates perceive and negotiate their professional standards (Adoniou & Gallagher, 2017; Mayer et al., 2005; Mifsud, 2018). The literature found that teachers’ responses are diverse and shaped by complex interwoven contexts.
However, how the certified in-service teachers (in-service teachers hereafter) negotiate top-down professional standards and accreditation is under-researched. Therefore, the study explores how in-service Chinese vocational teachers respond to “double-qualified teacher” (DQT hereafter) standards, which require vocational teachers with two years’ experience to meet indicators on enhancing their vocational teaching competence and obtain DQT accreditation (Ministry of Human Resources and Social Welfare, 2013). Vocational teachers teach basic major-related theory and guide students’ school-based vocational training in vocational education and training (VET) schools providing formal schooling. Besides vocational teachers, VET schools have two other teacher types: general teachers teaching basic subjects like math and internship teachers liaising with workplaces. The DQT standards intend to improve students’ school-based vocational training by re-equipping vocational teachers, mainly university graduates, with academic knowledge accreditation (Ministry of Human Resources and Social Welfare, 2013).

As studies on the DQT standard mainly examine national and school policies (e.g., Xu & Yuan, 2024; Zhu et al., 2022), it is intriguing to explore how in-service full-time vocational teachers respond to DQT requirements concerning their professional qualifications, especially in current Chinese VET contexts. This study employs agency theory to explore two questions: (1) how vocational teachers in a Guangzhou public technical school perceive and address DQT standards and (2) why. China’s national DQT standards for technical schools were made earlier and are more explicit than those for another two VET schools (i.e., mid-level professional schools and vocational senior-secondary schools). Additionally, the Chinese government emphasizes providing school-based vocational training for students (Wang, 2023); vocational teachers’ vocational competence has been more emphasized than general and internship teachers of VET schools.

The study used two data collection methods: (1) a review of documents from Pearl School’s vocational teachers, including their teaching plans and qualifications, and (2) semi-structured interviews with fourteen interviewees, including two school leaders in charge of DQT accreditation (i.e., one deputy principal and one teaching director) and twelve vocational teachers. Qualitative data were analyzed using a four-stage qualitative inductive approach in NVivo 11 (Thomas, 2006).

Despite similarly being motivated to continue professional development to earn certificates, the teachers’ responses toward DQT standards and accreditation revealed three patterns: active acceptance, supportive decoupling, and unsupportive dismissing. In terms of positioning and engaging with DQT standards and accreditation, their agency was interconnected and reflected the negotiation of iterative, projective, and practical evaluation elements in Pearl School and China’s VET contexts.

The study contributes to the literature on teachers’ responses towards professional standards by exploring in-service vocational teachers’ experience and revealing the complexities and problems of using top-down managerial strategies to enhance teachers’ competence and improve VET quality in the Chinese context.

References

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Author

• Shuqin Xu