Teacher leadership in early childhood education in China: a literature review and research agenda

The purpose of this study was to outline a research agenda for future work in teacher leadership in early childhood education in Chinese contexts. Since 2010, the Chinese government has initiated a comprehensive education reform to improve the quality of early childhood education. Developing teacher leadership has been used as one of the reform strategies to promote teaching quality. Apparently, there is a gap between the policy initiative and its implementation. On one hand, teacher leadership is promoted and driven by reform policies. However, on the other hand, there is lack of leadership preparation and development at school level. How to narrow the gap between policy and practice in teacher leadership has become a critical issue of quality early childhood education in China. It suggests that ‘formal or informal role’ and ‘role or practice’ are the important dimensions of teacher leadership in a Chinese, policy-driven context. In this regards, it is worth to explore how teacher leadership is conceptualized and enacted in the process of quality improvement and its related contextual factors. In doing so, a research agenda could be identified for future work in order to contribute to theory development of teacher leadership in global discourse.