Beyond dichotomy: Teachers’ moral educational roles in changing China

It is a widespread belief in many cultural contexts that teachers shall be moral educators and moral exemplars. However, in recent years, this conventional belief has been challenged by progressive views of various social and educational changes. In China, there is a particularly long tradition of regarding teachers as moral guardians who shall not be challenged by students or parents, but these traditional notions of teachers and their relations with parents and students are changing. Based on interviews with Chinese teachers, we explore teachers’ understandings of their moral educational roles and discuss what shapes these roles. Our findings show a hybrid or even contradictory picture of teachers’ moral educational roles shaped by conventional Confucian notions, the exam-orientedness of Chinese education system, and emerging discourses of parental responsibility, children’s rights, and individual autonomy in the post-reform China. This study shows how teachers’ moral roles in China are changing and intertwined with wider social and educational transformations and demonstrates a complex picture of teachers’ moral roles beyond the traditional/progressive dichotomy. These findings should inform the design and implementation of initial teacher education and professional development programmes to be contextualised and relatable to pre-service and in-service teachers in a rapidly changing society. Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.