Purpose - This study examines how policies, workplace climate and leadership contribute to trans PK-12 school workers' health and overall well-being. Design - Using a critical mixed-methods design led by queer and trans scholars, we developed an online survey for trans school workers in the United States of America and Canada (N = 341). To evaluate the relationship between policy protections, organizational supports, and affirming leadership on health, we use multivariate logistic regression analysis. Then, to deepen our understanding of the regression results, we conduct a conceptual thematic analysis of open-ended survey items about supports and barriers trans school workers face. Findings Trans school workers who reported having affirming educational leaders have 43%-55% lower odds of reporting either poor or fair health and low life satisfaction. In our qualitative analysis, 10% of participants report no workplace supports, and often remain closeted due to hostile workplace climates. Participants indicated that the most consequential supports for overall well-being include policy protections and implementing policies, unions, inclusive professional development, and supportive administrators, students, and colleagues. Practical implications - Multiple supports across educational structures are necessary. Policies provide an important foundation, but without proactive, accountable leadership, trans staff members continue to bear both emotional and physical burdens. We provide tangible examples of how educational leaders can enhance professional capital and gender-inclusive school communities. Originality/value - Amid the dual forces of growing recognition of gender diversity and increasing pressure to erase trans individuals from PK-12 schools in the United States of America and Canada, few studies have explored how policies and professional cultures shape trans school workers' health and well-being, as we do in this study.
Purpose Recent research has examined teachers' artificial intelligence (AI) competence, trust, and integration strategies, yet less is known about how AI-related work is coordinated through professional relationships. This study examines how AI-related collaboration is organized within professional learning community (PLC) infrastructure over time and how these relationships shape professional capital in practice. Design/methodology/approach A mixed methods case study was conducted in a Taiwanese junior high school engaged in national digital learning initiatives. The schoolwide PLC network provided organizational context, while two-wave AI Use and AI-integrated curriculum design (AI-ICD) networks among focal PLC educators were examined using descriptive network analyses and stochastic actor-oriented models. Interviews, observations, and organizational records were used to interpret the relational patterns. Findings AI-related collaboration showed two distinct but connected relational patterns. AI Use became more boundary-spanning, while AI-ICD remained concentrated within subject-aligned relationships. AI Use ties were positively associated with later AI-ICD ties, suggesting that exploration-oriented ties may have provided relational footholds for curriculum integration. Qualitative evidence showed how these arrangements shaped access to expertise, opportunities to develop AI-related pedagogical competence, and the exercise of professional judgment. It also identified time, readiness, perceived control, leadership recognition, and co-planning and verification routines as relevant conditions. Originality/value The study advances professional capital and network scholarship by showing how recurring AI-related demands are coordinated through existing PLC relationships and routines in distinct but connected relational forms. It contributes to the special issue by showing how relational arrangements shape access to expertise, pedagogical competence, and professional judgment under AI-related conditions.
Purpose This paper examines how teachers with varying levels of professional capital respond to artificial intelligence (AI) collaborations, aiming to inform policymakers and school leaders about how to communicate change more effectively. We synthesize theories of professional capital, cultural values and identity grafting (IG) to develop propositions regarding teachers' willingness and ability to engage in AI–teacher collaboration. Specifically, the study analyses how professional capital (human, social and decisional capital) and cultural values (power distance, uncertainty avoidance and risk-taking) interact to shape teachers' IG processes (blending, balancing, repressing and reversing). Design/methodology/approach Drawing on international literature on AI in education and IG constructs as analytical tools, we conducted a secondary analysis to reinterpret our previously published cluster analysis results on Hong Kong teachers. Insights from this secondary analysis informed the development of theoretical and practical implications for future research and practice of AI–teacher collaboration. The process involved: (1) analysing how profiles of professional capital and cultural values from the published results might respectively indicate willingness and ability to engage in AI–teacher collaboration; and (2) theorizing with IG constructs how these patterns might indicate processes that will shape teachers' responses to AI–teacher collaboration. Findings High-professional-capital teachers, being less hierarchical and more risk-taking, are most likely to regard AI as a collaborator, blending their identities during human–machine collaboration. However, in terms of values, their aversion to power distance can lead them to reverse from AI adoption. Medium-professional-capital teachers exemplify the risk-averse middle majority who tend to avoid uncertainty and reverse from novel ideas. They may eventually form collaborative relationships with AI if authoritative agencies provide guidance regarding the benefits. Low-professional-capital teachers are highly likely to become risk-takers who disregard the intended outcomes of AI–teacher collaboration and remain skeptical of reform initiatives. Research limitations/implications This concept paper used our previously published results on teacher collaboration as the grounds for projecting how research on AI–teacher collaboration employing our proposed conceptual framework might look like. As the previously published results were meant to illustrate how the model we propose might link present research on teacher collaboration with future research agendas on AI–teacher collaboration, future research could validate the propositions presented in this paper with updated mixed-methods datasets directly related to AI–teacher collaboration. Practical implications The study offers practical implications for schools to sustain meaningful AI–teacher collaboration in nuanced ways. For high-professional-capital teachers, integrating them in professional learning communities can empower their social capital to co-construct AI–teacher collaboration with other teachers. For medium-professional-capital teachers, low-stakes participation and scaffolded entry into AI use can build confidence in this new knowledge base, promote trust in ethical AI use and ensure that AI usage is coherent with existing teaching norms. For low-professional-capital teachers, trust-building through inclusive yet careful scaffolding of low-stakes leadership opportunities may foster higher engagement toward AI integration and strengthen organizational change capacity. Social implications We offer initial insights into how teachers with different levels of professional capital might respond to calls for AI–teacher collaboration. To address concerns regarding the social ramifications of AI–teacher collaboration, changemakers must go beyond the adopter–nonadopter divide to understand the cultural values that underpin teachers' identity processes when interpreting change. Ignoring these differences risks dividing the teaching profession and the sustainability of AI–teacher collaboration. Initiatives that disempower, force consensus, promote distrust and exclude those who do not appear compliant bring diverse social ramifications, and our conceptual framework provides plausible indications of how they might manifest. Originality/value This paper proposes a theoretically novel IG approach to future research on AI–teacher collaboration, channeling existing research on technological adoption toward understanding teacher identity formations that underpin their willingness and ability to collaborate with AI (cultural values and professional capital). It provides tailored recommendations for policymakers and school leaders on professional development in AI–teacher collaboration for teachers with varied levels of professional capital, considering their cultural values and how they might respond to such support, given their IGs.
Purpose This study examined Romanian teachers' perceptions of their school's maturity as a professional learning community (PLC) in relation to several organizational factors, including school learning capability, specific types of school culture, school size and class size. Additionally, the study explores whether these organizational variables are perceived differently across the two types of schools: mainstream versus special education. Design/methodology/approach To answer the research questions, a quantitative cross-sectional design was employed. Three hundred forty-nine Romanian teachers from mainstream schools (n = 195) and special schools (n = 154) were recruited through convenience and snowball sampling. Data were collected using an online questionnaire comprising three distinct instruments, each designed to measure the examined variables. Findings The results showed that schools’ maturity as PLCs was positively related to schools’ learning capability and clan and adhocracy cultures, and negatively associated with school size and class size. Schools with high learning capability and culture that ensure teamwork and knowledge dissemination (i.e. clan culture) or entrepreneurial leadership, experimentation and openness to change (i.e. adhocracy culture) are more likely to develop mature PLCs. The results indicated differences between mainstream and special education in terms of market culture, with teachers in special education perceiving a less pronounced market culture in their schools. Originality/value These findings highlight the importance of a supportive organizational culture in developing PLCs and examine in detail the role of school size, class size and type on PLC development, factors often overlooked in previous research.
Purpose This study examines how master teachers mentor experienced teachers into leadership roles within master teacher studios (MTSs) in China, and how these networked learning communities (NLCs) support the continuing development of teacher leadership (TL). Design/methodology/approach This is a qualitative embedded multiple-case study of four MTSs in one district of Shanghai, involving four master teachers and eight experienced teacher mentees. Data were collected through two rounds of semi-structured interviews, field observations and studio documents. Data were analyzed using time-sequenced analysis and theory-driven thematic analysis, informed by frameworks of mentoring and TL development. Findings The results revealed a five-stage developmental trajectory through which experienced teachers in MTSs from initially from “I don’t want to be a leader”, to “I may lead”, and ultimately to “I can lead well”. The findings highlight that TL can be nurtured, inspired, and transformed within NLCs, enabling experienced teachers to assume leadership responsibilities and develop leadership capabilities. Moreover, they show that mentoring and NLCs dynamically interact as two critical and mutually reinforcing mechanisms through which TL emerges, evolves, and is sustained. Originality/value This research contributes to TL development by clarifying how experienced teachers develop leadership identity and capacity within MTSs. It further contributes by demonstrating how NLCs complement school-based professional development and provide more sustainable leadership development pathways.
