“We’re All Teachers Here!”: The Role Peer Relationships Play in Teacher Leaders’ Influence in Schools

<p>Over the past decade, teacher leadership has become a critical component of igniting and sustaining local school improvement. Yet, the effectiveness of this distributed leadership model hinges on teacher leaders' ability to effectively influence the practices of their colleagues. The foundation of this influence, just as with students, is developing meaningful relationships. Since the clarity of roles and responsibilities of teacher leaders is not only murky, but also varies from school to school, teacher leadership can be perceived as an added layer of hierarchy or supervision which could hamper the relationship building process. The purpose of this study is to determine how teacher leaders perceive the role of building peer relationships has on their efforts to influence the instructional practices of their colleagues as well as the methods used by these leaders to manage peer relationships. In addition, the conclusions drawn from this investigation will determine if the challenges of constructing and maintaining peer to peer connections warrants specific training on relational skills for teacher leaders.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education in Teacher Leadership (Ed.D)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Leadership

Year dc:date.available

2023

Author dc:creator

• Bodrick, Tamara

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Keneisha Harrington
• Dr. Nicolas Clegorne

• collegial relationships
• teacher leadership
• distributed leadership
• Teacher Education and Professional Development

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/teachleaddoc_etd/72

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu:teachleaddoc_etd-1077