Beyond a one-size-fits-all approach: Considering English language teachers’ differential capacities for engaging in and implementing professional learning in China

Educational borrowing from the West has been considered of strategic importance to China’s ongoing educational reform. Whilst existing research has highlighted issues in the implementation and contextualisation of borrowed policies and practices, surprisingly little has been written about the impact of professional learning programmes that have been imported from the West to China. In order to address this gap, we adopted a mixed methods approach that utilised in-depth qualitative interviewing and surveying to understand 25 public and private school English teachers’ experiences of undertaking professional learning in China. Our study was underpinned by the concept of ‘differential capacities’ which helped to bring into focus the participants’ differing abilities to engage with and implement their professional learning. Inductive thematic analysis identified spatial, curricular and temporal structures as inhibiting teachers’ engagement with their professional learning. We found that the public-school teachers were more disadvantaged than their private school counter-parts in terms of their ability to harness spatial and curricular capacities. This disadvantage was compounded for teachers with caregiving responsibilities. We conclude by making the case for a more empathetic and equitable approach to professional learning that is calibrated to teachers’ differential capacities. Copyright © 2023 International Professional Development Association (IPDA).