Iranian teachers’ perceptions of teacher leadership practices in schools

Abstract

Teacher leadership is increasingly seen as a key option for school reform and improvement. However, despite the extensive literature on teacher leadership, this issue has achieved little attention in Iran. To fill such a research gap, the present study examined teacher leadership practice in a sample of Iranian schools. The ‘Teacher Leadership School Survey’ developed by Katzenmeyer and Moller (2009) was administered to 213 teachers across 22 schools in Kermanshah province. The intention was to examine the teachers’ perceptions of teacher leadership practice in schools and the ways through which such perceptions might have been influenced by variables including gender, age, teachers’ educational degree, teaching experience and school level. The results of descriptive statistics, t-test and one-way ANOVA revealed that teacher leadership was practiced above sometimes and closer to often in the sample schools. Further, data analysis indicated significant differences in teachers’ perceptions of teacher leadership practice with reference to their educational degree and the level they taught. However, teachers’ age, gender, and years of teaching experience did not appear as significant factors.