This study aims to utilize data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), 2018, conducted in four provinces and cities in China, to investigate the impact of social support on the resilience of disadvantaged students. It specifically focuses on the chain-mediated effects of school belonging and emotional experiences. To achieve this, the study selected 2997 disadvantaged students as participants and employed path analysis to examine the mediating effects. The results indicate that teacher support, parental support, school belonging, and positive emotional experiences significantly positively influence the resilience of disadvantaged students, while fear of failure significantly negatively affects resilience. Additionally, teacher and parental support indirectly impact the resilience of disadvantaged students through the chain-mediated effects of school belonging and positive emotional experiences. Similarly, teacher and parental support also influence the resilience of disadvantaged students through the chain-mediated effects of school belonging and fear of failure. To enhance the resilience development of disadvantaged students, it is recommended that teachers and parents provide active attention and support to these students. Simultaneously, there should be increased focus on the psychological well-being of disadvantaged students by strengthening their mental health education.

This paper proposes a theoretical framework to understand the structure and determinants for rural teacher well-being (TWB), with a focus on key factors that can mediate low pay and poor work conditions, specifically teachers’ professional learning (PL) and community engagement (CE). This framework was tested using structural equation model in a sample of 3155 rural teachers in China. The quantitative results confirmed a second-order factor structure for TWB, evidencing the significant impact of pay satisfaction and the mediating effects of PL and CE of rural teachers. Implications encourage policymakers to strengthen rural TWB by enhancing PL and community connections, while continuing to seek ways to improve pay and work conditions.

This study examines the relationship between key elements of the School Excellence Model (SEM) and student achievement in reading, mathematics and science as measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 and the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2013, using a sample of 166 schools in Singapore. Strategies, quality and resources are identified as school-level dimensions commonly involved in the SEM to select variables in PISA 2012 and TALIS 2013. A multilevel data analysis was conducted using hierarchical linear modelling. The results indicate that a triangulated school strategy focused on strengthening teacher participation, principal commitment and school responsibility has significant relationships with student performance. In particular, teachers’ instructional improvement contributed to student achievement, while teacher ratio to support teaching staff accounts for the largest variance in student achievement. Finally, school extra-curricular activities promote well-rounded student development that enhances learning achievement. Findings highlight the importance of school-based accountability that empowers teachers, in building school capacity for student achievement.

(2019). Teacher education and teaching in China. Teachers and Teaching: Vol. 25, Special Issue on Teacher Education and Teaching in China, pp. 753-756.

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate associations between the organisational and cultural contexts in which Chinese teachers work, the influence of these on their understandings of professionalism, and relationships between these and their perceived willingness and commitment to be effective in teaching to their best.Design/methodology/approach: The research was part of a two-country collaboration between the universities of Beijing and Sydney into Australian and Chinese teachers' perceptions of influences on their professionalism in which research protocols were jointly developed and implemented. This paper focusses mainly upon the Chinese research but also refers to key differences between Australian and Chinese teachers' perspectives. Seventeen teachers in early, middle and later career phases were recruited from a convenience sample of primary and secondary schools in Beijing. Qualitative data analyses of individual interviews, and cross case comparative analyses were conducted.Findings: The analyses of the data from Beijing indicated that almost all teachers emphasised their strong moral purposes and commitment to teach to their best, despite identifying the challenges of workload, school contexts and cultures and personal circumstances, which tested their resolve. In contrast, concerns about teacher autonomy and agency, which were common in the Australian study and other published research literature, were not highly visible in the Chinese data.Research limitations/implications: The authors acknowledge that this study was small scale and data were collected from a narrow sample from one urban region of China, and we should be cautious with the generalisability of findings to other regions and schools of China since there are significant discrepancies between developed coastal areas and large cities and the remote rural areas in China. Furthermore, interview data were only collected once, restricting insight to a snapshot in time. This research may be seen as an encouragement to researchers from other regions and countries to further explore the impact of socially situated understandings of teacher professionalism on practice. Future research could also benefit from utilising multiple data sources, longitudinal design and cross-cultural collaborations to further explore the challenge of defining teachers' understandings of professionalism locally while engaging with global perspectives.Practical implications: The practical implications relate to (1) expanding conceptualisations of teacher professionalism by developing locally nuanced understandings of perceptions and enactments of professionalism in different contexts across the profession, which take account of the unique roles of national and local cultural contexts; (2) designing initial teacher education and continuing professional development programmes so that they take account of the influences on the professions' ideals and individual teacher identities, of the ideological and practical interplay in the workplace of structures such as mandated standards, and different socio-economic geographical settings (e.g. rural and urban); (3) designing leadership development programmes that take account of research on associations between school leaders' values, qualities and practices on school cultures and their effects on teachers' well-being, and capacities and capabilities to fulfil their understandings of being professionals and teach to their best.Social implications: The social implications relate to (1) further research on the associations between the effects of external policy demands on teachers' work and work–life tensions, teachers' sustained commitment and quality; and (2) further research on the impact of the collective influences of national cultures, broad-based policy conditions, personal values and the demands of particular schools, parents and students that influence teachers' experience, perceptions and enactments of professionalism in order to provide further insights into understanding the complexity of teachers' lives and promoting teachers' sustained enactments of professionalism in broad contexts.Originality/value: The research findings, though tentative, revealed that the altruistic nature of their mission to serve students and the parental community was the dominant marker of professionalism for teachers in China, regardless of school structures, cultures, academic achievement imperatives and personal circumstance; and that their professionalism was informed by the socio-cultural formation of individual and collective moral responsibility, reinforced through national educational policies. These findings differed from the concerns reported by the teachers in the Australian study, which aligned with literature that suggests that teacher professionalism is being eroded through neo-liberal government policies, excessive workloads and performance-oriented cultures. Though the comparative data set is small, these findings suggest that whilst there are increasing policy convergences across nations, which seek to define teacher professionalism through their abilities to make improvements in students' measurable academic achievement, how teachers in different countries and cultures define themselves as professionals may differ.

Learning to be a teacher through teaching practicum is viewed as a highly complex process in which multiple dilemmas and tensions emerge. These tensions may influence student teachers’ motivation for teaching. However, previous studies on teacher motivation have mainly focused on social status and welfare, seldom taking their emotion regulation into account. Sampling 752 student teachers from 15 teacher education institutes in China, this study examined the relationships between student teachers’ emotional labor strategies, professional identity tensions, and motivation for teaching during their practicum. The results indicated that emotional labor strategies were found to be important resources for student teachers to cope with the challenges brought by the tensions of professional identities in teaching practicum. In particular, deep acting and expression of naturally felt emotions enhanced student teachers’ intrinsic motivation to become a teacher. The results indicated that student teachers should perform emotional labor strategically, which may motivate them to be a teacher intrinsically.