Challenges in teachers’ professional identity development under the National Teacher Training Programme: an exploratory study of seven major cities in Mainland China

ABSTRACT

Professional identity development (PID) of school music teachers is critical to teacher community sustainability, the quality of school music practices, and the long-term well-being of the music education system. While in-service music teacher training strengthens the occupational aspects of teachers’ identity, the iterative PID process is both content-dependent and context-dependent. Using a framework based on the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum (SEC), this study explored school music teachers’ PID profiles in Mainland China after a 10-year implementation of the National Teacher Training Program (NTTP). Prominent characteristics of teachers’ PID were analysed regarding self-efficacy, belief, professional commitment, and task orientation, relating to self-report and observed classroom instructional practices. Statistical analysis showed high coverage of curriculum content in teachers’ daily instructional practices, while minor differences are evident among groups by region, grade band, and years of teaching. The impact of NTTP on PID and implications for in-service music teacher training are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Enacted curriculum
• curriculum alignment
• in-service teachers
• professional development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work described in this paper was substantially supported by the Dean’s Research Fund (Project No. FLASS/DRF/IRS-11) and Internal Research Fund (Project No. RG31/21-22R), The Educational University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.

Notes on contributors

Yang Yang

Dr Yang Yang is an assistant professor in music education at the Education University of Hong Kong. He received his PhD in music education from the University College London Institute of Education. The main research output is in the pedagogy of folk music education in higher education and the acoustics of Chinese folk singing voice. Recent research projects include studies on music teacher education and developing an e-learning environment for traditional Chinese music.