Abstract:

While teacher leadership is generally perceived and examined in the context of student-teacher, an updated discourse is now shifts to focus on a broader teacher- colleagues context. Yet, the discussion in the literature has not been sufficiently organized in terms of its content and characteristics and processes. The present study presents a process of teacher professional development as leaders in a way in which their professional identity expands into an all-encompassing identity, meaning into an "hyphenated identity" where each of the “teacher” and “leader” labels has a unique meaning and power. This process of professional change is taking place in the present study.

According to the literature, teacher professional development as leaders is anchored in five key calls:
(1)The call for teacher sharing responsibility for professional development processes (Priestley & Drew, 2019);
(2) Expanding teacher leadership from teacher-class circle to teacher-colleague circle (Fiarman, 2015);
(3) Addressing the characteristics of broad leadership and definitions in relation to teacher agency (Harris and Jones, 2019);
(4) Expand the characteristics of teacher agency in relation to distributed leadership characteristics (Schott, Van Roekel, Tummwers, 2020);
(5) The need of empowering school leaders and educators through “adult SEL” initiatives.

Our research question is how a teacher-leader hyphenated identity develops and what are its characteristics. Data were collected from 46 leading teachers in elementary and high schools, over two years. Using a phenomenological approach (Creswell, 2016) we used a variety of research tools including reflective documents, audio recordings of community meetings, video recordings of community representations at a year-end session and presentations of the whole process.

Data were analyzed inductively in a holistic content analysis process. Six key categories that actually define milestones in the process of formulating teachers' professional identities as teacher-leaders were found: The transition from "identify" to "identification", the process of establishing and expanding identity consciousness, expanding the sense of self-efficacy into practice, the ability to "move aside", deepening pedagogical knowledge and finally an established spiral return to their definition as leaders. The whole process characterized by a movement of development, an oscillation between spaces and of mobility between one identity to another. The various situations created within the movements produce milestones in the formation of teacher-leader identity.

References:
[1] Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2016). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Sage publications.‏
[2] Fiarman, S. E. (2015). Developing teacher leadership. SE Fiarman, Becoming a school principal: Learning to lead, leading to learn, 71-94.‏
[3] Harris, A. & Jones, M. (2019) Teacher leadership and educational change, School Leadership & Management, 39:2, 123-126, DOI: 10.1080/13632434.2019.1574964.
[4] Schott, C., van Roekel, H., Tummers, L.G. (2020). Teacher leadership: A systematic review, methodological quality assessment and conceptual framework. Educational Research Review, 31
[5] Priestley, M. & Drew, V. (2019). Professional Enquiry: an ecological approach to developing teacher agency. In D. Godfrey, & C. Brown (Eds.) An eco-system for research-engaged schools. Reforming education through research. London: Routledge, pp. 154-170.

Keywords:

Teacher Leadership, Agency, Professional development.