Teacher leadership and student engagement in Hong Kong: Paradoxes and dichotomies

Teacher leadership has been carefully investigated, both empirically and theoretically, in a number of its most important manifestations: notably, teachers as instructional leaders and teachers as administrative leaders. The emergent research in this field ties in with world-wide initiatives for educational reform which has, at least in principle, placed teachers at the helm of school improvement. Student engagement too remains high on the research agenda on education, and despite reforms it remains a cause for concern. In this paper I argue that the advent of the Internet and the unprecedented availability of information that this has generated suggests the nature of school-based learning and that of teacher leadership has undergone a change. This calls for a close re-examination at the factors that affect the professional status of teacher leadership and the impact that this leadership has on student engagement and learning in contemporary schools.