Knowledge and promotion of teacher leadership: An Abu Dhabi exploration

Abstract

This research is an exploratory, quantitative examination of the knowledge, understanding and promotion of teacher leadership in a public school in the city of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Within Abu Dhabi education has become a top priority as it attempts, through a massive reform project, to develop a modern, innovative, world-class system which puts students first. Teacher leadership is thought to be one way in which a reform project can be supported and student learning can be improved. The participants in this study were drawn from an Abu Dhabi all-female primary school with both expatriate and Emirati teachers. Though some dissimilarities between the Emirati and expatriate teachers emerged, overall findings indicated that teacher leadership as it pertains to improving classroom practices through professional development was the focus and preference of teachers. However, they felt that teacher leadership was most commonly represented through teachers performing additional administrative duties. T...