Between chalk and change: How teacher leadership agency is exercised and sustained in professional learning

Abstract

This study examines how teacher leaders, a critical yet undertheorised form of mid-level educational leadership in Vietnam, exercise and sustain their leadership agency in mentoring and supporting colleagues' professional learning. Informed by the ecological model of agency and a practice-based view of leadership, qualitative findings from 15 social science teacher leaders suggest that leadership agency is exercised and sustained through orchestrating collective pedagogical judgement in everyday practice. The study offers a contextually grounded contribution to the ecological model by foregrounding cognitive responsibility and suggesting that evaluative judgement may involve the co-construction of shared professional knowledge rather than reactive compliance with reform. The study also highlights emotional sustainability, grounded in moral and relational commitment, as an important dimension of leadership agency over time, offering contextually grounded insights for professional development policy and leadership support in education reform contexts.