Educational institutions are constantly scrutinized concerning their successes or failures in meeting their educational goals. School principals alone are generally unable to cope with the increasing demands within their schools because a single leader does not have all the time, expertise and energy to lead reform (Spillane, 2006). Such challenging circumstances have intensified the need for a collaboration between all members of educational institutions and a distribution of leadership powers within schools. For Harris (2013a, p 12), distributed leadership is a term used to refer to “leadership that is shared within, between and across organizations”. One strand of distributed leadership prevalent in the literature is teacher leadership. Educational institutions are, accordingly, required to extend their sources of change, decision making and influence and incorporate teachers as agents of change in school improvement (Muijs & Harris, 2006). The concept of teacher leadership has, thus, evolved as a paradigm shift in school leadership, from the centralized top-down perspective to a more decentralized and distributed approach to school leadership, giving empowerment to teachers to take on leadership roles (Mangin, 2007). Teacher leadership has been a recurrent theme in educational reforms landscape since the mid-1980s (Murphy, 2005; York-Barr and Duke, 2004) and strong arguments have been provided by scholars advocating its value for students, teachers and schools as a whole. Despite increasing interest in teacher leadership research, consensus on a definition of the concept is still missing in the existing literature. According to Neumerski (2012), lack of consensus in defining teacher leadership is mainly because it “tends to be an umbrella term referring to a myriad of work” (p.320). In a similar way, Cooper, Stanulis, Brondyk, Hamilton, Macaluso and Meier (2016) explained that teacher leaders’ roles vary depending on the research and the school context.  Defining teacher leadership is, thus, not an easy task as a number of authors have put forward various competing and overlapping definitions of the concept (Muijs & Harris, 2003). Although many studies have investigated teacher leadership in various contexts, it could be clearly noted that research in this area remains pre-dominantly Western (Nguyen et al, 2019; Wenner & Campbell, 2017), with very few studies conducted in non-western contexts. More specifically, no study of this kind has been conducted in the Algerian context to the best of my knowledge. Given that contexts matter, this study aims to contribute to the existing body of research on teacher leadership by providing a knowledge base of Algerian middle school EFL teachers’ perceptions and reported practices of teacher leadership. This paper, which is part of a more extended doctoral research, is thus, guided by the following research questions:

1.       What perceptions do middle school EFL teachers hold regarding teacher leadership?
2.       What are middle school EFL teachers’ reported practices of and experiences with teacher leadership?

The current research adheres to the interpretive paradigm’s relativist ontology, perceiving teacher leadership as ‘reality’ as socially and experientially constructed, and is not independent from Algerian EFL teachers’ consciousness. Participants’ perceptions of teacher leadership, thus, constitute its multi-realities as understood and experienced by them. Consistent with the interpretive paradigm, a qualitative case study design was employed to meet the aims of this research, the case being Algerian middle school EFL teachers. Purposive and convenience sampling strategies were employed to recruit the sample, which involved both positional teacher leaders and teachers who do not hold a positional teacher leadership role. To collect relevant and sufficient data, this research employed 13 individual semi-structured interviews, 10 reflective essays and 4 online focus group discussions. Each focus group involved four teachers; one of them is a positional teacher leader. Overall, 19 participants took part in this research. However, it is important to note that not all of them contributed to the three data collection methods (i.e. some teachers, for example, participated in individual interviews and wrote reflective essays but did not take part in the FGDs). Issues related to ethical considerations were addressed prior to beginning the fieldwork or approaching potential participants. These involved providing an information sheet and a consent form, ensuring participants confidentiality, anonymity and freedom of withdrawal at any stage of the research. Individual interviews and online focus group discussions were recorded, transcribed and translated when needed. The collected data was analysed thematically following the 6 phases of thematic analysis outlined by Braun and Clark (2006). A report, as the final stage of thematic analysis, was produced with data organised in relation to each of the two research questions outlined earlier.

This research provided a detailed overview of teacher leadership within the Algerian middle school context. Although the term ‘teacher leadership’ itself seemed not to be commonly used in the participants’ work context, their perceptions and definitions of the concept indicate their awareness of what constitutes teacher leadership. Findings in this regard support multi-dimensional nature of teacher leadership and revealed teachers’ clear orientation to relate it with non-positional roles. In other words, participants’ definitions of the concept covered a wide array of practices that teacher leaders could engage in and traits that characterise those teachers, and were clearly focused on perceptions of teacher leadership as influence through collaboration, professional support and role modelling rather than a designated position or authority. Teacher leadership was defined in relation with: practices within the classroom, practices beyond the classroom, teacher leaders’ traits and participation in decision-making. The latter, despite being perceived by the interviewees as an essential aspect of teacher leadership, was reported as being limited in their work context. Although none of the participants defined teacher leadership in relation with positional roles, data revealed that they were aware of positional teacher leadership roles within their context, relating these roles to the selection and promotion process that teachers have to undergo. However, it was noted that they had limited awareness of the additional responsibilities that come with these roles, which poses questions related to role clarity and teachers’ preparation for these positional teacher leadership roles within the study context. Participants’ reported practices of teacher leadership were largely consistent with their perceptions in that they were mainly non-positional in nature and were not restricted to the classroom context. Their reported practices, overall, reflected their innovative teaching practices, continuous professional learning, care for their learners and the direct or indirect influence that they have on their peers.

Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) ‘Using thematic analysis in psychology’, Qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), pp. 77-101. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa Cooper, K.S., Stanulis, R.N., Brondyk, S.K., Hamilton, E.R., Macaluso, M. and Meier, J.A. (2016) ‘The teacher leadership process: attempting change within embedded systems’, Journal of Educational Change, 17(1), pp. 85-113. doi: 10.1007/s10833-015-9262-4 Harris, A. (2013a) ‘Distributed leadership: Friend or foe?’, Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(5), pp. 545-554. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1741143213497635 Mangin, M. M. & Stoelinga, S, R. (2008) Effective Teacher Leadership. New York: Teachers College Press. Muijs, D., & Harris, A. (2003) ‘Teacher leadership: Improvement or empowerment? An overview of the literature’, Educational Leadership and Management, 31(4), pp.437-448. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0263211X030314007 Muijs, D. and Harris, A. (2006) ‘Teacher led school improvement: Teacher leadership in the UK’, Teaching and Teacher Education. 22, pp. 961-972. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2006.04.010 Murphy, J. (2005) Connecting Teacher Leadership and School Improvement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Neumerski, C. M. (2012) ‘Rethinking Instructional Leadership, a Review. What Do we Know about Principal, Teacher and Coach Instructional Leadership, and Where Should we Go from Here?’, Educational Administration Quarterly, 49(2), pp. 310-347. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0013161X12456700 Nguyen, D., Harris, A., and Ng, D. (2019) ‘A Review of the Empirical Research on Teacher Leadership: (2003-2017) Evidence, Patterns and Implications’, Journal of Educational Administration, 58(1), pp. 60-80. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JEA-02-2018-0023 Spillane, J.P. & Diamond, J.B. (2007). Distributed Leadership in Practice. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University. Wenner, J.A. and Campbell, T. (2017) ‘The theoretical and empirical basis of teacher leadership: a review of the literature’, Review of Educational Research, 87(1), pp. 134-171. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3102%2F0034654316653478 York-Barr, J., & Duke, K. (2004) ‘What Do we Know about Teacher Leadership? Findings fromTwo Decades of Scholarship’, Review of Educational Research. 74(3), pp. 255-316.Available at: https://doi.org/10.3102%2F00346543074003255