Introduction. Education research is increasingly challenged to explain how educators translate situated knowledge into collective action under changing institutional conditions. Responding to ECER 2026’s theme “Knowing and Acting”, this study examines how teachers in newly built county-level schools in China make sense of, negotiate, and enact their roles in school culture construction. Here, “school culture construction” refers to an ongoing practice process manifested in explicit projects/activities/outcomes as well as implicit cultural experience during the founding phase. Crucially, the study analyses how this role work functions as a site of practice-based professional learning for teachers who are new to the school context, directly aligning with Network 01’s Special Call on cultivating professional practices for new (and new-to-school) teachers.

Although school culture is often discussed as a relatively stable set of shared assumptions and values, less is known about how teachers learn to become “cultural actors” beyond instructional duties during the turbulent founding phase of newly established schools (Schein, 2010; Schoen & Teddlie, 2008). Across systems, early professional development is shaped not only by formal induction but also by participation in organisational routines, collaborative work, and feedback-rich interactions. Yet existing research often frames teachers’ cultural contributions prescriptively (e.g., as “implementers”), overlooking the transformative professional agency required to navigate and shape changing school cultures (Reinius et al., 2022). Addressing this allows us to understand how such processes cultivate professional self-understanding and judgement beyond mere technical competence (Kelchtermans, 2009).

Theoretical framework. Drawing on social role theory, this paper conceptualises teachers’ participation in culture co-construction not as a single duty but as a role set shaped by organisational expectations and interactional meaning-making (Biddle, 1986; Merton, 1968). We distinguish role cognition (processing perceived norms, evaluations, and expectations) from role positioning (the practice of taking up and adjusting roles through ongoing interaction). We focus on role positioning as the connecting mechanism between “knowing” and “acting” in a new school.

 To align with Network 01, we interpret role positioning as workplace learning in a new organisational context: role negotiation is not merely compliance but a learning process through which teachers build professional knowledge and agency to navigate an emerging system (Lichtenstein et al., 1992; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Through legitimate participation in emerging routines and feedback loops, teachers develop professional practices and identity-in-practice (Feiman-Nemser, 2001).

The study addresses two questions: (1) How do teachers in a newly built group school perceive and position their roles in school culture construction? (2) How do teachers negotiate and sustain these role positionings across situations and over time, and what do these dynamics reveal about the knowing–acting link as a pathway of professional learning?

European/international relevance. Many education systems face school founding, restructuring, or rapid reform (e.g., new school openings, school mergers, academisation), in which teachers—often including experienced staff who are nonetheless new to an organisation—must learn professional practices through participation in emergent routines and cultures. This paper offers a role-theoretical vocabulary to analyse such learning-in-practice processes across contexts, not limited to China.

A qualitative case study was conducted in a newly built group school in a county area (J County) in China. Following principles of naturalistic inquiry, the site was selected as an information-rich case due to its establishment-phase structures for culture work (e.g., a “pioneer team” tasked with launching key routines) (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Data triangulation supported analysis of the interplay between teachers’ role cognition and role positioning in situated practice. Data generation comprised three sources: (a) semi-structured interviews with seven key informants—five pioneer-team teachers (including leaders of the “1+n” mentoring squads) and two school leaders—focusing on sense-making of role expectations and perceived professional learning; (b) participant observation during the founding phase, enabled by the researcher’s involvement as a project assistant, with detailed fieldnotes capturing naturally occurring interactions and routine enactment in a non-evaluative manner; and (c) artefact collection (e.g., culture-construction plans and routine documents, and where available, reflective notes and visual records of classroom environments). Triangulation enabled cross-checking and elaboration by comparing articulated beliefs (“knowing”) with observed practices and material outputs (“acting”). Ethical procedures were followed (informed consent, anonymisation; ethics approval obtained in accordance with institutional requirements). Analysis employed thematic analysis, combining sensitising concepts from social role theory with inductive coding (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Analytic steps included initial coding, iterative comparison across data sources, and mapping of an interconnected role set (role cluster). Trustworthiness was enhanced through prolonged engagement and an audit trail of analytic decisions.

Findings identify six role positionings: (1) practitioners and innovators, (2) organizers and leaders, (3) learners and seekers (of knowledge), (4) reflectors and maintainers, (5) interlocutors and sharers, and (6) communicators and collaborators. These roles function not as isolated labels but as an interconnected role set, enabling teachers to move between experimenting with practices, coordinating collective routines, reflecting on emerging norms, and building relational alignment across the school community. Three characteristics define this role set: multiplicity (teachers simultaneously inhabit complementary or conflicting roles, such as learning norms while leading students), trans-contextuality (roles are enacted across formal rituals and informal interactions), and dynamic evolution (role cognition grows as teachers adjust their “knowing” through feedback from their “acting”). Interpreted through a practice-based learning lens, these role movements represent pathways through which new-to-school teachers cultivate professional practices and professional judgement while stabilising an emerging school culture. The paper argues that culture co-construction operates as a powerful arena for practice-based professional learning—particularly in founding-phase schools where routines and identities are still being formed—and that teachers act as essential cultural architects rather than passive recipients (Reinius et al., 2022). Implications speak directly to Network 01: rather than treating teacher development solely as individual induction, school leaders can design organisational routines that legitimate participation, structure collaboration, and create feedback-rich opportunities for professional becoming in new organisational contexts. Internationally, the role-set lens offers a transferable tool to understand how teachers develop professional practices through participation in emergent school cultures across systems.

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