In Ukraine, there is a current shift in the paradigms of teacher training which is influenced by introducing European dimension in educational sphere. Thus, there is a change in the teacher’s roles in education and the approaches to teaching and learning which, in its turn, is undergoing an impact of teacher leadership. That prompted the research topic which brings together teacher leadership in Ukraine and the role of teachers in school management.

Much of the educational research before the 1980s fell into the positivist domain and dealt with descriptions of administrative positions and personal traits. However, it did not uncover relationships between leadership and school culture or more general conceptualizations of leadership. As a result, in our research, we will move from direct effects to mediated effects and antecedent effects. We have turned to a multivariate analysis of data, enabling the construction of a model of effects within a model of teacher leadership. This sophisticated statistical illustration of teachers leaders effects on school culture has allowed for substantive conclusions on effective leadership.

The research was based on the results of the All-Ukrainian Monitoring Survey of Secondary School Teachers and Principals (by TALIS methodology) conducted by the Ukrainian Educational Research Association with the questionnaires for teachers and principals used for Teaching and Learning International Survey conducted by OECD in 2013.

The monitoring survey was a part of the Teacher Project within the big scale project “Educational Reform: Quality Assessment in the International Context” realized by Ukrainian Step by Step Foundation with the support of Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and Porticus. The project was headed by Prof. Svitlana Shchudlo and co-coordinated by Prof. Oksana Zabolotna and Doc. Tetiana Lisova.

The first two waves of Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) were conducted by OECD in 2008 and 2013. Ukraine did not participate in TALIS 2008 and 2013; neither is it going to participate in its next wave in 2018. It deprives Ukraine of valuable data that might contribute to understanding the current situation by comparing the data to those received from EU and other countries. With this in mind, Ukrainian Educational Research Association got from OECD the permission to use TALIS 2013 Principal and Teacher questionnaires for the TALIS-like survey in Ukraine. 

The All-Ukrainian survey was aimed at getting comparable evidence of teachers’ social, demographic and professional characteristics and school environment. The data could be used for answering the following research questions:
• What are interconnections of school autonomy and teacher leadership in Ukraine?
• What is the role of teacher leaders in forming school culture?

The research was carried out by the methodology of Teaching and Learning International Survey. It means that the research target population included secondary education teachers and leaders of mainstream schools. The target sample size was 200 schools per country; 20 teachers and 1 school leader in each school. School samples included representative samples of schools and teachers within schools. The response rates were 100% of the sampled schools, together with a 97 % response rate from all sampled teachers. Separate questionnaires for teachers and school leaders were used, each requiring between 45 and 60 minutes to complete. The questionnaires were filled in on paper. Ukrainian Educational Research Association conducted the research between February and August 2017. The researched school population embraced 201 principals from 201 schools, as well as 3600 school teachers (ISCED 2). The research was conducted in all the regions of Ukraine except Crimea and the territories in the conflict zone. The two-stage sampling design was used in the research for school selection, at the first stage it was stratified sampling; at the second stage it was random sampling. For selecting teachers, one-stage random sampling was used (S.E. – 1,6 % with design effect 2,3 %). To view the issue from the comparative perspective, the authors use the results of the All-Ukrainian monitoring conducted by UERA in 2017 and the TALIS research conducted by OECD in 2013.

Teacher leadership has a powerful potential for introducing change into education. Nevertheless, in Ukraine, this opportunity is somewhat underestimated and is not paid proper attention to. First of all, it is seen through the interconnection of teacher leadership and school autonomy. As long as the school enjoys a selective autonomy without having a real impact on all the spheres of school life we cannot speak about teacher leadership in all its dimensions. If the school is deeply stuck in the web of state control and imposed values and beliefs, no teacher leadership may flourish. Educational, financial and administrative issues are all closely connected in education, thus without the possibility to influence all of them teachers cannot be free to take decisions concerning the life of the school community. In our opinion, it is more the matter of trust, when the state is not ready to entrust the teachers with the freedom to decide on the principal issues in the sphere of their expertise. On the other hand, without gaining this freedom, teachers do not learn to take a real responsibility which is the cornerstone of teacher leadership. In the line with the first issue comes the role of teacher leadership in forming school culture. All experience tends to show that a lot of new teachers come to school believing that they can change the world of education for the better. Then, when they get in the narrow corner of school life where they cannot see ‘the big picture’ and cannot take even minor decisions, they can get disappointed and experience a professional burnout. Our findings lead to the conclusion that though teacher leaders are in high demand in Ukraine, there are some crucial problems to solve before they can enrich all spheres of school life with their zest and creativity.

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