This symposium arises from a programme of research arising from collaborations involving ‘Leadership for Learning’, ‘Education International’ and ‘Open Society Foundations’. The papers largely focus on the ‘Future of the Teaching Profession’ survey commissioned by Education International and the International Teacher Leadership (ITL) project which originated at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education.

The survey carried out in 2011 was a small, but global, study to explore teacher self-efficacy, voice and leadership. It gathered the views of teachers and teacher union officials in Bulgaria, Denmark, U.K., Greece, Egypt, Hong Kong, Macedonia, The Netherlands, Turkey Australia, Canada, Norway and the USA. The purpose was to investigate the current environment and existing opportunities for teachers to exercise leadership, influence policy, shape professional practice, and build professional knowledge. The outcomes of this project included a set of policy recommendations which make a significant contribution to the debate about the future development of the teaching profession (Bangs and Frost, 2012).

Linked to this survey was an action research project, the ITL project, which was established in 2008 (Frost, 2011). Teacher leadership here is linked to arguments about ‘distributed leadership’ (egSpillane et a., 2004; Pont, Nuscheand&Morman, 2008). However, the distinctive characteristic of the approach is that it assumes the value of ‘non-positional teacher leadership’ which aims to maximise the potential of the teaching profession as a whole.  The idea is rather than selecting a few teachers for ‘teacher leader’ roles, we should enable all teachers to develop their leadership capacity according to their circumstances and professional interests. Project participants included researchers, educators and activists from 15 countries, mostly European including Portugal, Greece and Turkey with a significant proportion of nation states in the Western Balkans.

All the papers in this symposium are linked to the projects described above and each contributes to an exploration of teacher professionality conducive to innovation and reform with dimensions such as leadership, knowledge building and democratic participation. 

The approach to this symposium will be to present papers as part of an interactive process in which participants are able to engage in discussion and pose their own questions. Critical dialogue will be supported through the use of artefacts that have arisen from the research.

References

Bangs, J. and Frost, D. (2012) Teacher self-efficacy, voice and leadership: towards a policy framework for Education International (A report on an international survey of the views of teachers and teacher union officials). Brussels: Education International.

Frost, D. (2011) Supporting teacher leadership in 15 countries: the International Teacher Leadership project, Phase 1 - A report, Cambridge: Leadership for LearningUniversity of Cambridge Faculty of Education

Pont, B., Nusche, D. and Morman, H. (2008) Improving school leadership, Volume 1: policy and practice. Paris: OECD.

Spillane, J., Halverson, R. and Diamond, J. (2004) Towards a theory of leadership practice: a distributed practice. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 36(1), 3-34.