{"title":"Teaching Research Group Leaders’ Engagement in Curriculum Leadership: The Principals’ Perspective","authors":"Yiming Shan","doi":"10.4236/OJL.2021.102005","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Schools and teachers have been empowered with \ngreater autonomy to make instructional decisions following decentralisation in \neducation, both internationally and in the Chinese context. Thus, it is \nimportant to examine how teachers are involved in curriculum decision-making. Being the stakeholders who empowered teachers with \nautonomy, this study explored principals’ perspectives of how teaching research \ngroup (TRG) leaders are empowered to take on a curriculum leadership (CL) role \nin secondary schools in China. A qualitative approach was employed and involved \ninterviewing 10 principals and collecting the job descriptions of TRG leaders \nin 10 secondary schools in Taiyuan City, China. The NCR was pioneered in 2001 \nin 38 experimental areas (e.g., provinces, autonomous districts and \nmunicipalities) selected by the MoE, which aimed at prompting the implementation \nof NCR. Taiyuan City is one of the experimental areas (MoE, 2001). The findings \ndemonstrated the necessity for empowering TRG leaders, as they were found to be \nless empowered and exhibited less awareness of enacting the CL role, especially \nfor the national curriculum. In terms of the theoretical contribution of this \nstudy, it explicates the involvement of teacher leaders in CL at four levels \n(i.e., the school level, the classroom level, the social relationship level, \nand the personal level). This provides a reference for an in-depth \nunderstanding of teacher leaders’ initiatives. In practice, the research \nfindings are informative for entailing teachers with greater autonomy. This \nwill ultimately prompt school development and thus broaden and add to the international \nbody of knowledge on teachers’ engagement in CL.","PeriodicalId":284389,"journal":{"name":"Open Journal of Leadership","volume":"03 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Open Journal of Leadership","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.4236/OJL.2021.102005","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Schools and teachers have been empowered with
greater autonomy to make instructional decisions following decentralisation in
education, both internationally and in the Chinese context. Thus, it is
important to examine how teachers are involved in curriculum decision-making. Being the stakeholders who empowered teachers with
autonomy, this study explored principals’ perspectives of how teaching research
group (TRG) leaders are empowered to take on a curriculum leadership (CL) role
in secondary schools in China. A qualitative approach was employed and involved
interviewing 10 principals and collecting the job descriptions of TRG leaders
in 10 secondary schools in Taiyuan City, China. The NCR was pioneered in 2001
in 38 experimental areas (e.g., provinces, autonomous districts and
municipalities) selected by the MoE, which aimed at prompting the implementation
of NCR. Taiyuan City is one of the experimental areas (MoE, 2001). The findings
demonstrated the necessity for empowering TRG leaders, as they were found to be
less empowered and exhibited less awareness of enacting the CL role, especially
for the national curriculum. In terms of the theoretical contribution of this
study, it explicates the involvement of teacher leaders in CL at four levels
(i.e., the school level, the classroom level, the social relationship level,
and the personal level). This provides a reference for an in-depth
understanding of teacher leaders’ initiatives. In practice, the research
findings are informative for entailing teachers with greater autonomy. This
will ultimately prompt school development and thus broaden and add to the international
body of knowledge on teachers’ engagement in CL.