This research presents an understanding of the world of successful teachers. In documenting their life histories, I composed a research text which explored the presences and absences, identities and differences, changes and continuities, variations and uniqueness, which characterise how teachers perform their success in the present educational context of continued shifts and constantly changing images. Working with Trevor, Anna, Ursula, Daryl, Eddie and Hlo, I co-created stories of lives "told and experienced", a journey that pressed me to look at the transcending and shifting line between the private/public. Written through a composition of stories, poems, photographs, musical pieces and illustrations, I have engaged in the risky, poststructural practice of redescribing their worlds in order to understand what it means to think, know and act differently, in the struggle with the desire to be "free". Employing a cubist metaphor as a heuristic device, I was able to entertain the possibility of other "worlds" within the discursive practice of "being teacher": creating potential explanatory and diverse descriptions other than the one available as the singularly defined identity category of "teacher". Employing a poststructural analytical framework, I documented the multi-dimensional nature of identity and meaning, and drew attention to the play between discourse and practice in teachers' agenda for agency. Teachers' agenda for agency is described within "Patterns of Desire" within which the evaded or marginalised in teachers' lives become available as spaces for change and moments of freedom. I present an understanding of teachers' selves through excavating the "interior" of their lives to provide a more three-dimensional approach that injects the private into the public, rupturing the fine line as a way to maintain an "aura" of desire, love, friendship, hope and familiarity in their daily lived experiences. Emerging along two axes, "Practices of the Self' and "Practices on the Self', this composition that I have created, identifies the complexity of teaching discourses and practices enacted out and enacted on teachers' daily lives that resist and disrupt those hierarchical grids of normalcy and regularity. In particular, I attended to those elusive eruptions of teachers' selves when teachers articulate their resistance to normalcy and surveillance and make themselves available to refiguration and transformation. Investing in particular historically emergent social practices and relationships that teachers effect, by their own means, there is pleasure in challenging anew the bond between teachers' private lives and public responsibilities. Agency of teachers lies in the ability to deconstruct and reconstruct identity within the discursive formations and cultural practices. In troubling the structures that often imprison and violate, teachers are able to slip through and open their thoughts and desires to their differences - the other categories that are evaded in the single identity category teacher, thereby sustaining potential for ongoing continuity and change. Continued metamorphosis of thought and act, simultaneous and consecutive, is what offers teachers moments of deep meaning and awareness that keep the private/public alignment and variation in the ways of experiencing their world, in their 'desire to be', 'desire for' and 'desire to please' as a possible condition for being a successful teacher. / Thesis (Ph.D) - University of Durban-Westville, 2003.

叶菊艳. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 293-309) / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Ye Juyan.

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Hostile school environments are a cause of concern and a perennial international educational problem. The UNICEF’s Child-Friendly Schools (CFS) approach is an international intervention meant to safeguard learners against hostile school environments. The CFS approach mandates schools to offer learners environments and conditions that uphold children’s rights and enhance their development to full potential. The purpose of this mixed methods research study, employing a concurrent triangulation design, was to explore the role of teachers in the promotion of CFS environments. Holsti’s (1970) role theory formed the theoretical framework of this study. The research questions focused on teachers’ understanding of the CFS concept, support offered, strategies employed, challenges encountered, and the implications for teacher professional development. The data collection methods were questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and document analysis with school heads, teachers and learners in the seven government urban secondary schools in Mutare district of Manicaland province in Zimbabwe. Quantitative and qualitative data were independently analysed and merged at the interpretation stage through triangulation of results. Major findings reveal that teachers have poor understanding of the CFS concept, are offered moderate support, occasionally employ viable strategies, and are hindered by various factors in the process of promoting CFS environments. The study’s implications for teacher professional development are rooted in identifying sustainable approaches that adequately equip teachers with relevant information, skills and attitudes that ensure the promotion of CFS environments.

The teaching profession, like many other professions, has rules and regulations that guide the conduct of its members. Teachers and those who aspire to take up teaching are expected to conduct themselves and discharge their duties in an impeccably professional manner. However, there is concern especially among education authorities regarding unprofessional conduct of some of those employed in schools and colleges. This action research study is a response to this concern. Its goal was to explore issues of professional conduct as part of the induction process of new members entering the teaching profession, and to thereby develop a better understanding of how best to raise student teachers’ awareness around professional conduct issues. The study used a qualitative research framework located in the interpretive paradigm. Three theoretical frameworks informed the design and subsequent analysis of the findings, namely, Burn’s transformational leadership, Mezirow’s transformative learning and Kolb’s theory of experiential learning. Two cycles of workshops around issues of professional conduct were conducted over a period of four weeks with a sample of 40 pre-service student teachers: final year students enrolled in the college’s three year Diploma in Education programme, all members of a science education class. Data collection strategies used were semi-structured interviews, observation and the use of reflective journals, among others. Analysis of the data involved identification of emerging themes and patterns. Initial findings indicate that prior to the commencement of the cycles of action research, participants appeared to have a limited understanding around issues of professional conduct, but that this changed as they participated in the workshops. The data of the study suggest that further steps need to be taken to establish optimal ways of incorporating professional conduct issues into the college’s teaching curriculum.

Yao, Jingdan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-70). / Abstracts in English and Chinese; appendix in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.ii / Table of Contents --- p.iii / List of Tables --- p.iv / Chapter Chapter 1: --- Introduction --- p.1 / Definitions of Teacher Leadership --- p.2 / Major Approaches of Leadership Research --- p.4 / Leadership Complexity --- p.6 / Moral Leadership --- p.9 / Personality and Leadership --- p.11 / Evaluation of Teacher Leadership --- p.19 / Subordinates' A ttitudes --- p.22 / Objectives and Hypothesis of the study --- p.26 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- Method --- p.28 / Participants --- p.28 / Measures --- p.29 / Procedure --- p.33 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- Results --- p.34 / Teacher Leadership Behavior --- p.34 / "The Relationship among Teachers Self-ratings and Student-ratings in Leadership, and Student Outcomes" --- p.39 / Personality and Leadership --- p.40 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- Discussion --- p.43 / Leadership Behavioral Model of Head Teachers --- p.43 / Moral Leadership of Head Teachers --- p.46 / Criteria of Teacher Leadership Performance --- p.48 / Personality Predictors of Head Teacher Leadership --- p.50 / Implication of the Present Study --- p.52 / Limitations and Future Direction --- p.53 / References --- p.54 / Appendix --- p.71

As the New Curriculum Reform proceeds to its second stage, the key roles played by teachers in curriculum implementation are increasingly recognized by policy makers and researchers. As a result, teacher professional development has become the focus of a series of major policies, projects and plans. However, are teachers empowered by such measures, especially by officially sanctioned institutionalized learning? From the perspective of teacher leadership, this study attempts to examine the teachers' role in training and to explore the possibility of a teacher-led professional development. In this study, teacher-led professional development refers to (1) teachers' self-direction and autonomy over their own professional growth, and (2) teacher leaders' influence over the professional community. The major research questions of this study are: (1) What are the power relations between the state, university professors and school teachers? In the context of power relations, what is teacher leadership? (2) What kind of teacher leadership exists in the Chinese schools? (3) What are the obstacles that prevent teachers from leading? What conditions are necessary for teachers to genuinely own their professional development? / In order to answer the above questions, documentation research and field research was conducted at state, provincial, municipal, district and school levels. Documentation research warranted content analysis of relevant policies and field research warranted observations and interviews in two schools. / In the United States and the United Kingdom, two policy stances were developed in response to global change: policies for standardization, accountability, and assessment; and policies for capacity building and good practices. Teacher leadership is a reform strategy in the second stance. It postulates that teachers should become leaders in curriculum, instruction, school restructuring and professional development. This study is an attempt to explore teacher's leadership over their professional development in the Chinese Mainland. / This study argues that the existing system of teacher professional development in the Chinese Mainland is power-coercive, and formal teacher leadership was characterized by hierarchy, meritocracy and instrumentalism all of which have a negative impact on teacher professional development. The state performs multiple roles as reformer, monopolizer, legislator and enforcer. To implement the New Curriculum, "technologies of power" are employed and they form a tight control over the process of continuing teacher education. University professors have a relatively smaller impact on teachers as their effects on school reform are dubious. Teachers feel deprofessionalized and powerless in most institutionalized training which offer no choice and autonomy. Confronted by the state's monopoly of power, distorted professional values, weak professional awareness, and weak support from school leader, teacher leadership faces strong challenges. The finding of this study suggest that in order for teacher leadership to emerge, four conditions are necessary: delegation of power to school and teacher, reconstruction of professional values, more support from school leaders to teacher leaders, and a collaborative teacher culture. / 陳崢. / Adviser: Leslie Lo Nai Kwan. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-08, Section: A, page: 2956. / Thesis (doctoral)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 278-293). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Chen Zheng.

Since independence in Namibia in 1990, schools have been required to transform themselves from hierarchical organisations with autocratic leadership to more democratic forms of leadership which allow greater participation in leadership by teachers. This shift assumes that effective leadership and management of schools can secure and sustain school improvement. Against this backdrop, the purpose of my study was to explore the enactment of teacher leadership in three public schools in the Eenhana circuit of the Ohangwena region in Namibia and to examine the factors that enhance or inhibit this enactment. My study, located in the Namibian schooling system, was a replication of a multi-case study project conducted in South Africa during 2008-2009 by 11 Master of Education students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. My study was conducted within a qualitative interpretive paradigm and I adopted a case study of three Namibian schools with three teacher leaders per school as the unit of analysis. As in the original study, the instruments that I used to collect the data included a survey questionnaire, focus group interviews, individual interviews, selfreflective journals, observations and document analysis. All the educators, including the three teacher leaders at each of the three schools completed questionnaires following which the three teacher leaders at each school were interviewed using a semi-structured focus group interview method. The teacher leaders also provided information through journal writing. In addition, these teacher leaders were observed and I examined the school documents, such as minutes of meetings, to find out how they engaged in leadership roles in their institutions. Semi-structured individual interviews were also conducted with the principal and the secretary of each of the three selected schools to acquire contextual information about the schools. The Statistical Package of Social Sciences was used to analyse the quantitative data while qualitative data were analysed using thematic content analysis and, in particular, a model of teacher leadership (Grant, 2008). The findings of my study indicated that, although teacher leadership was a new concept to the majority of educators who took part in my study, teacher leadership was enacted at all the three schools. Teacher leadership was enacted differently at each of the three schools depending on the culture and structure of each school. At School A, teacher leadership was enacted successfully across the first three zones of the model within a dispersed distributed framing. At School B, teacher leadership was restricted to the first two zones, in the classroom and with other teachers and learners with little leadership distribution. At Schools C, teacher leadership was evident across all four zones of the model and classified as emergent with a dispersed distributed leadership framing. Barriers that prevented the development of teacher leadership in these schools were experienced as time, hierarchical structure, an autocratic principal and the exclusion of teachers in chairing of meetings. Factors that enhanced teacher leadership included collaborative and collegial cultures, teamwork, good communication, shared vision, collaborative decision-making, teachers-led initiatives and the involvement of learners in leadership roles. The dissertation concludes with recommendations for further research and practice in relation to the concepts of teacher leadership and distributed leadership in Namibia. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

M.Ed. / The focus of the study is aimed at the personal and professional identity of the educator in the ever-changing milieu of specialised education. Since 1994, numerous changes have started to take place within the South African teaching profession, resulting in far-reaching implications for all educators. These changes include: the introduction and implementation of outcomes based education, a newly structured curriculum, modified assessment practices, the redefinition of the roles of educators and renewed educator appraisal systems. All of these impacted on educators in specialised schools. With the announcement of the Education White Paper 6: Special Needs Education – Building an Inclusive Education and Training System, the education system changed to one National Inclusive Education System, which would henceforth acknowledge the fundamental right of each person. The Medical Model, used in the past as relevant classification model for learners with special needs, was replaced with a bio-ecological system theory with several new support structures. Educators in special education, having to redefine their personal and professional identities, experienced a sense of insecurity and personal frustration. Erik Erikson‟s psycho-social theory was used as literary reference, in order to determine whether the shaping of identity was influenced by the transformation process. The relevant study was approached from a qualitative, phenomenological basis, to ensure that the life experiences of the individuals in specialised education can be understood and interpreted. Selected educators and managers with a long-term commitment to specialised teaching, and involved with in-practice teaching institutions, took part in the study. Their descriptions, interpretations and critical self-reflection were captured using structured interviews, participatory education and personal journals. Autobiographical narration was used as a form of story-telling, in order to verbalise the deepest thought processes and feelings of the participants. Four alternating identity dimensions that influenced the shaping of the personal and professional identities of specialised educators, were identified. It was established that the fundamental , developing and transformative identity dimensions alternatively function as integral dimensions, while still promoting a certain personal and professional educator identity within the unique context. The argument, however, has arisen that the optimal ecosocial identity dimension has not been achieved. Hope, competence – which includes an v active caring for a fixed community – and the proficient concern to lobby for the survival of a certain group, has not been accomplished. Due to the fact that the unique group of educators can no longer function optimally in the social community and framework, and as a result of a disturbed and changing support network within the specialised education milieu, it has in conclusion been established that the disintegration of relationship structures has impacted negatively on the optimal shaping of identity.

This study is an exploration of leadership practices that develop and sustain a professional learning community (PLC). More specifically, it explores teacher perceptions of these leadership practices in the context of a school district in Alberta, Canada. The study employed qualitative research in the form of interviews of sixteen teachers from one school district. Findings include description of teacher perceptions of leadership practices as they relate to shared and supportive leadership, shared values and vision, collective learning, supportive conditions, and shared personal practice. It is necessary to recognize the interrelated nature of structural supports along with cultural underpinnings to fully develop and sustain PLCs. Moreover, the findings highlight the influence of structures in supporting dimensions of collective learning and shared personal practice. The need for careful consideration of the power of school culture over the effective use of any structure is evident. Leaders’ continuous modelling and involvement are imperative to develop teacher capacity to embrace shared and supportive leadership, shared values and vision, collective learning, supportive conditions, and shared personal practice. Furthermore, the building of trust and celebration of teacher and student learning moulds a schools’ culture to one that reflects success in the various PLC dimensions. The study concludes by suggesting possible areas for further research in addition to demarcating suggestions for continued reflection within the field of leadership as it relates to developing and sustaining PLCs. / ix, 147 leaves ; 29 cm.