Linking the private and public: teacher leadership and teacher education in the reflexive modernity

Abstract

This study attempts to reveal the process of teacher leadership (TL) and its implications for teacher education. Two rounds of interviews, including focus group interviews with six chosen schools in Taiwan, were conducted to reveal the process. It was found that the development of TL is a stretching process from the key leader to core members, then to general followers, and the pattern of development is a process of assemblage from the private side to the public side. It is also argued that the private resource of TL (e.g. recognising the complexity of inner experiences, the ontic vulnerability and the needs of others) is contributive to educational creativity and reform. Finally, the private–public-integrated model and three strategies of articulation (internal, theoretical–practical-situated and external) are proposed conceptually and practically for further development of teacher education and educational change.