Teacher leaders' perception of their roles under reform in Hong Kong primary schools

Abstract

Teacher leadership is a growing field in the school leadership literature. However, there is still insufficient empirical study to apprehend how formal and informal teacher leadership roles are formed in practice. There is also a lack of comprehensive analysis of teacher leadership in Hong Kong. This study strives to answer two research questions—what are teachers’ formal and informal leadership roles and responsibilities, and how do personal, organisational, and social and policy factors affect teachers’ formal and informal leadership roles? This qualitative study uses descriptive and explanatory approaches and a single case study design to investigate teacher leadership in a Hong Kong primary school. The research findings revealed the variety of roles and responsibilities borne by formal and informal teacher leaders. In the case school, teacher leaders had three formal leadership roles: school administrator, curriculum developer, and teacher developer. Teachers with the school administrator and curriculum developer roles had managerial functions, including planning and coordinating, supervising and supporting, and evaluating and appraising. They implemented various school administrative tasks and managed subject curriculum development. Moreover, teachers with the curriculum developer role had the additional duties of bringing about change, securing external support, and dealing with parents; higher-rank teacher leaders were responsible for advising senior school management. For the teacher developer role, teacher leaders led school-based professional development and mentored junior teacher leaders and new teachers. Furthermore, three informal leadership roles—mentor, curriculum specialist, student activity manager—were depicted. Teachers with these informal leadership roles had won other teachers’ respect because of their outstanding traits and expertise, guided other teachers within their communities of practice, or positively influenced more experienced teachers who might not be willing to lead new initiatives. This study found that four social and policy factors (the School-Based Management Policy, the Curriculum Reform policy, teacher professional development policies, and pressure from parents and society), five organisational factors (the school sponsoring body, the school’s decision-making process, principal leadership, the school’s organisational structure, and school culture and norms), and two personal factors (teacher leaders’ years of experience and teachers’ motivation to be teacher leaders) had influenced the formation and enactment of teacher leadership roles in the case school. This thesis also applied the Theory of Power Bases to analyse how teacher leaders utilised the six power bases—legitimate power, reward power, coercive power, expert power, informational power, referent power—to lead teacher followers. Finally, this study’s mechanism was drawn to explain how various factors and teacher leaders’ power bases affected the formation and enactment of teacher leadership roles in the case primary school.