Cogent Education

Teacher Leadership as Professional Development

Cogent Education is pleased to welcome you to submit your research to the Article Collection "Teacher Leadership as Professional Development".

Teacher leadership has emerged as a critical dimension of educational reform and school improvement over the past three decades. There is now broad recognition that leadership within schools is not the exclusive domain of administrators, and that teachers themselves play a central role in shaping school culture, driving instructional improvement, and sustaining meaningful change. Since the late 1980s, when foundational roles such as mentoring, coaching, and curriculum development were first formally theorized, the field has evolved considerably, moving through the professional learning community movement of the 2000s and into contemporary concerns around data-driven reform, distributed leadership, and social justice. Thus, teacher leadership is intricately connected to teacher learning and development. Teachers engaged in professional development can improve instructional practices, but also increase agency, build professional relationships, and strengthen student learning.

Teacher leadership matters because it sits at the intersection of instructional quality, school culture, and educational equity. However, building teacher leadership is meaningless if teacher professional learning and development does not increase apace. Recent empirical studies suggest meaningful links between teacher leadership-related competencies such as instructional coaching, mentoring, and assessment, and positive school and student outcomes and can serve as professional learning opportunities for all teachers. Beyond individual classrooms, teacher leaders are essential in building professional learning communities where educators can share practice, collaborate, and grow together professionally. In many contexts, however, teachers still lack the support, autonomy, and structures needed to take on meaningful leadership roles. As schools face increasingly diverse student populations, evolving curriculum demands, and the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of teacher leadership in sustaining responsive and equitable professional development in education has become increasingly evident. Without greater attention to teacher leadership as professional development, schools miss an important opportunity to build the kind of professional culture where both teachers and students can thrive.

This article collection welcomes empirical studies, case studies, and conceptual or theoretical papers that engage with teacher leadership as a form of professional development. Contributions may explore how teacher leadership shapes student outcomes such as achievement and engagement, or how it influences teachers' own professional identity, self-efficacy, and retention. Papers that examine how teacher leadership is developed and sustained through professional development, teacher education programs, or action research are also encouraged, as are those that investigate the policy, cultural, or organizational conditions that shape leadership practice on the ground. International and comparative perspectives that illuminate how teacher leadership is understood and enacted across different national and cultural contexts are particularly welcomed. Preferred article types include original empirical research using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods, systematic or scoping reviews, and conceptual papers that advance the field's theoretical frameworks.

Meet the Guest Advisors

Dr Peter Wiens is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Dr. Wiens’s research focuses on understanding teachers’ experiences with teacher leadership and the development of measures to assess this phenomenon. Dr. Wiens coordinates the teacher leadership programs at UNLV and publishes his research in top tier journals. He is also the founding President of the Association for Teacher Leadership and Scholarship.

Dr Seoyeon Park is a postdoctoral researcher whose research focuses on teacher preparation, teacher leadership, and STEM education. Her work informs the design and evaluation of teacher education programs, with a particular interest in teacher learning, professional identity, and instructional quality.

The Guest Advisors declare no conflict of interest regarding this work.