The honourable road and its impact on teacher practice: an analysis of China's national honour system in cultivating professional development

Abstract

China's national teacher honour system, initiated in 1949, is designed to recognise the academic and pedagogical performance of individual teachers and professional collectives at national, provincial, municipal, and school-based levels. This study employs grounded theory analysis to examine the phenomenon of China's teacher honour system by analysing documents, narrative stories of 11 award recipients and five non-recipients, and interviews with four government officials who manage the system. The paper discusses sociocultural aspects of this honour system by exploring the impact of three types of professional honours on teacher professional development. This system aims to balance government leadership in conferring honour with individual pursuit of professional development in one's local setting. Contextualised in a Confucian culture, the teachers immersed in this honour system benefit from collegial support in engaging in professional growth activities. Challenges with this system include the need to enhance teacher efficacy by engaging teachers in shaping the policy, as well as the possibility of political – rather than professional – criteria determining honour conferral, discouraging rigorous pursuit of professional growth.

Keywords:

• professional development
• professionalism
• teacher honour system

Acknowledgements

We express our gratitude for the helpful perspectives and insights shared by all of the teachers, administrators, and policy makers who participated in this study. This work was supported by the MOE [Ministry of Education] Project of Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Universities (10JJD880003) and Teacher Training Based on Professional Learning Communities in the Context of the Curriculum Reform Project (2009 Annual MOE Youth Project Fund of National Educational Science Planning, EHA090450).

Notes

1. The documentation data is cited by “D – the first letter of city name – year”. The interview data is cited by “I – the first letter of school name – the last name of interviewee – year and date”.

2. The main resource of this appendix comes from the book which is based on a national survey of the Chinese teacher honour system, see Zhu and Song (2013).