In 2009, Macedonia became a part of the International Teacher Leadership Programme (Frost, 2011) which was implemented in several South Eastern European countries. The teacher leadership methodology (Frost 2011, 2012; Frost & Durrant, 2003), which is underpinned by non-positional leadership, extended professionalism (Hoyle, 2008) and professionality (Evans, 2008) and promoting teachers’ personal agency served as a pilot for a different kind of continuous professional development model: one that provided less prescribed structure, relies more on teachers’ personal agency to collaborate and network. The programme was part of other initiatives intended to raise education quality and uphold democratic values as key requirements for these countries’ accession into the European Union.

Currently the ‘Step by Step’ Foundation – Macedonia is implementing a USAID Project Readers are Leaders which includes a component intended to support school-based learning communities of teachers. These learning communities, established in 60 primary schools and involving over 500 teachers and school staff, incorporate the teacher leadership methodology, where teachers develop projects targeting lower-primary school students literacy and numeracy skills, while incorporating the original idea of shared knowledge, vision and ownership over one’s classroom practice and professional identity.

The nature of the support is twofold: on a school level, the learning communities meet once a month with a mentor (a person with vast experiences in different segments of the education system) who helps them in conducting a constructive dialogue about their pedagogical practice. With the aid of a set of tools and instruments designed within the International Teacher Leadership Project, the teachers select, define and conduct individual development project, gathering evidence and reflecting on their own learning process. The goal of the projects is essentially to help students’ learning, but also to create a practical knowledge base helping colleagues cope with context-specific issues through joint activities and projects. During this process teachers collaborate with each other to devise action plans for the intervention they want to undertake in their classroom. Additionally networking events are organized joining several learning communities from different schools in order to expand the pool of useful practices and exert greater impact over the in-service teachers’ learning.

On a more large-scale level, the goal of these activities is to foster a culture of sharing knowledge in the school and life-long learning skills in order to make schools more effective, to increase school improvement, to raise teacher morale and retention and to embody democratic values (Frost & Durrant, 2003). The learning communities are an attempt to create a strong self-sustained professional body of extended professionals, ultimately creating the necessary conditions for a greater influence of teachers’ voice over education policy and reclaiming professional autonomy.

This research’s objective is exploring teachers’ perceptions on the actual versus desired conditions that expand or limit teachers’ professional identity in Macedonia.  For this purpose, the research employs a questionnaire comprised of 12 relevant themes, defined by Education International (Bangs & Frost, 2012) focusing on the following themes:

• Teachers’ influence in policy and practice
• Choice and judgement in matters of pedagogy
• Leadership of continuing professional development
• Teachers’ roles in curriculum development
• Responsibility for relationships and communication with parents
• School evaluation / inspection
• Teachers’ roles in assessment of pupils’ learning
• Teacher performance assessment / appraisal
• The creation of professional knowledge
• Teachers’ voice and influence
• Strategies  and  policies  that  would  enhance  self-confidence  and  self-efficacy.

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