Promoting the development of backbone teachers through University-School Collaborative Research: the case of New Basic Education (NBE) reform in China

ABSTRACT

The image of backbone teachers has long informed the modern-era Chinese educational system. Backbone teachers play leadership and modeling roles in school-based groups of teachers focusing on research, lesson planning, and grade development. China’s New Basic Education (NBE) reform, which differs from previous Chinese reforms, aims to systematically transform schools in order to respond to contemporary social and economic changes. NBE views the development of individual subjectivity as education’s ultimate goal. Teachers’ roles need to shift from transferring knowledge to students to constructing knowledge with students and from teacher-as-curriculum-implementer to teacher-as-curriculum-maker and knowledge constructor. Backbone teachers are foundational to the NBE reform. In this article, we introduce the NBE initiative, and elaborate how NBE nurtures backbone teachers so they can ‘model as leaders; [and lead] other teachers as backbones’ in the reform. To end, the national and international implications associated with our case are discussed, along with future research suggestions.

KEYWORDS:

• New Basic Education (NBE)
• backbone teachers
• University-School Collaborative Research
• narrative inquiry
• teacher-as-curriculum-maker
• hierarchical relationships

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the Peak Discipline Construction Project at the School of Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China;

Notes on contributors

Yuhua Bu

Yuhua Bu is a professor at the Department of Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China. Her main research fields are educational philosophy, educational ethics, basic education reform and teacher education.

Xiao Han

Xiao Han is a research associate at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Houston, Houston, USA. Her current research interests include teachers' practical knowledge, teacher professional development, educational reform, technology integration in education and online course design.