Developing teacher leadership for school improvement in the context of curriculum reform in Vietnam: an ecological perspective
Creators: name: Huynh, Trong Luan
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 390307
subject: Teacher education and professional development of educators

description: Teacher leadership has often been put forward as a means of achieving school improvement in Western countries, such as the US, UK and Australia, and in Western-influenced education systems, such as Singapore and Hong Kong. However, little attention has been paid to this concept in less-developed countries, like Vietnam. Similar notions are increasingly prominent in Vietnam’s education policies and professional development and learning (PDL) activities, yet, to date, there has not been a thorough discussion about the conceptual foundations of these notions, nor any effort to draw on the body of Western scholarship on teacher leadership development.

This study addressed this missing focus in the literature and explored whether teacher leadership development could offer a means for building local capacity to implement the basic education reform in Vietnam. The study examined the implied qualities of teacher leadership in the policies, the participants’ perceptions about the concept and roles of teacher leadership, the impacts of PDL activities on teacher leadership development, as well as the factors enabling and inhibiting teacher leadership for school improvement.

The study employed a qualitative case study that involved 14 school leaders and 22 teachers from three state-funded primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary schools and one private multi-level school in the West of Vietnam. Policy documents were collected, and interviews with the participants and observations of PDL activities were conducted. All data were analysed thematically, guided by Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological model of human development to make meaning of the evidence.

Four key findings emerged in this study. First, there are clear resonances between Western notions of teacher leadership and Vietnamese vernacular understandings of these notions. The participants described different dimensions and practices of teacher leadership through existing Vietnamese cultural beliefs and language, which the research conceptualised as 4Ts in Vietnamese, including Tâm đức (strong moral purpose), Tầm nhìn (shared vision), Tài năng (high competencies), and Tài chính (necessary resources). 

Second, the individual participants demonstrated limited understanding of the five teacher leadership roles associated with the 2018 Professional Standards for Teachers. Their understanding of these five teacher leadership roles was aligned with the reform policies and sociocultural context. Teacher leadership was, to the participants, more about (1) acting as a role model of traditional moral values than moral purpose, (2) conducting mandated self-learning than self-directed and collaborative learning, (3) practising general teacher autonomy than collegial and individual autonomy, (4) participating in consultative decision-making than co-building democratic culture and structure, and (5) connecting family, school, and society for their financial contributions to the organisation of diverse activities for students than acting as catalysts among related stakeholders for student holistic education. 

Third, teachers’ PDL activities within the four case study schools and their school networks were diverse and interrelated, leading to the development of some teacher leadership practices. However, such teacher leadership practices developed from the current PDL activities were still insufficient for institutionalising teacher leadership for school improvement.

Fourth, despite this study attempting to examine both enablers and barriers, the participants focused more on the factors that inhibited teacher leadership rather than factors that enabled teacher leadership. At the macro and exo levels, the teacher participants identified structural, cultural, and traditional attitudes and conditions as such interconnected barriers that even the teacher participants themselves, who could exercise the ‘expected’ teacher leadership roles, could not perform at their full potential. At the meso and micro levels, under the competitive and narrow measures of performance, school leaders gave more emphasis to achieving the imposed targets than considering the reality of school resources, the rising complexity of building school culture and teacher capacity, and the critical significance of work-life balance for teachers. Developing teacher leadership requires cultivating an educational ecosystem where teacher leadership can be mutually fulfilling and where the leaders and those who are led can flourish together. 

The thesis makes three key contributions to teacher leadership research. First, the study has made an empirical contribution by documenting the ways in which teacher leadership is conceptualised and practised in Vietnam. Second, based on the parallels between the participants’ perceptions of teacher leadership and teacher leadership theory, the study has developed a localised conceptualisation of teacher leadership, referred to as the 4Ts that can readily be integrated with existing education policies and practices in Vietnam while drawing on extensive international research and practices. 

Third, the study puts forward an ecological model for developing teacher leadership for school improvement. The model highlights the integral role of teachers as co-constructors and co-adapters in achieving successful reform of the whole system. To develop teacher leadership in and beyond the classroom, professional learning communities within the schools and school networks should focus more on developing teacher collaboration, collegiality, agency, and autonomy. They should also build teachers’ adaptive expertise and deep conceptual knowledge of ‘why’ to identify and address existing and new professional problems together.