Collaboration as a Path to Professionalizing Leadership: Insights From L2 Writing Teachers' Narratives

Abstract

Institutions of higher education (HE) and language programs (LPs) are ecologies or complex adaptive systems whose components constantly interact to create innovation and change (see Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008; Lichtenstein et al., 2006; Pennington & Hoekje, 2010a, 2010b; Uhl-Bien et al., 2007). As part of these complex dynamics, instructors interact with other system components, which causes adaptive change behavior to emerge. Such a view of teachers is congruent with literature that defines faculty as change agents and arbiters of mission and vision who are central to the planning, decision-making, and administrative processes (Astin & Astin, 2000; Pennington & Hoekjie, 2010b; Rowe, 2012). Such conceptualizations of faculty leadership reflect more recent understandings of leading as a collaborative, polycentric, non-hierarchical, contextual, situational, and often unpredictable process, carried out in pursuit of a shared goal (Bolden et al., 2008; Crosby, 2016; Harter, 2009; Ruben et al., 2016; Simkins, 2005). An obstacle to this role of teachers as leaders is the widespread divide between faculty and administrators (i.e., perceived leaders) in HE institutions (Bolman & Gallos, 2011). The rise of managerialism has exacerbated this “architecture of disconnection” (p. 67) by fostering bureaucracy and centralized power structures that intensify the tensions and lack of shared experience among institutional silos (Simkins, 2005; van Ameijde et al., 2009). Additionally, the rapid growth of non-tenured part-time faculty often leads to the de facto exclusion of teachers from curricular and organizational decisions (Kezar & Sam, 2010). Against this background, this dissertation investigates the role of second language (L2) writing instructors as leaders in their institutional ecologies. Adopting Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT) as its conceptual lens, the research is interested in how teachers’ participation in collaborative professionalization leads to leadership-related outcomes. In other words, the study explores instances of how, when, and why teacher professionalization and teacher leadership coincide (professionalizing leadership). To this end, the research uses the three leadership functions associated with CLT (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007) to explore how innovation, creativity, and adaptive change behavior emerge through collaboration (adaptive leadership), what pressures and incentives lead to collaboration and the interaction of system agents (administrative function), and what conditions 1) catalyze emergence and 2) make the innovation productive at the institutional level (enabling function). Effectively a form of border or boundary crossing (see Crandall & Christison, 2016; Tsui & Law, 2007; Wright, 2010), collaboration seems particularly promising when it comes to understanding how the interaction of system agents (i.e., teachers) leads to the emergence of innovation, creativity, and adaptive change behavior. While the benefits of collaboration regarding teacher epistemologies, identity formations, and best practices are documented in (L2) writing contexts (Ferris, 2007; Pella, 2011; Scott & Rogers, 1995; Winer, 1992), however, scholarship on L2 writing teacher professionalization (with implications for leadership practices and involvement in the administration and decision-making processes) in general is sparse (Hirvela & Belcher, 2007). Furthermore, few sources in the field of higher education leadership seem to explicitly acknowledge the role of instructors as leaders. Lacking specifics of what synergies lead to emergent behavior or how teachers’ roles, attitudes, or levels of awareness influence this process, those which do often provide an incomplete picture of the relationship between collaborative forms of professionalization, teaching, administration, and leadership (see Astin & 2000; Kezar & Sam, 2009; Marshall et al., 2011). To explore these aspects of instructor leadership, the research draws from two qualitative methodological approaches. A descriptive multiple case study design (Baškarada, 2013; Baxter & Jack, 2008; Kezar & Lester, 2009; Merriam, 2009; Steadman et al., 2018) was adopted to study the complex phenomenon of teacher leadership through multiple data points and lenses while also accounting for the important factor of context in complex dynamic systems (see Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008). The bulk of the case study data is made up of teachers’ narratives (see, e.g., Clandinin, 2006; Kayi-Aydar, 2017, 2018; Liu & Xu, 2011; Nishino, 2012; Rodriguez & Polat, 2012; Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013; Tsui, 2007; Yuan & Lee, 2016) about their subjective experiences with professionalization and leadership. One major finding of this research is that the concepts of professionalization and leadership, as articulated by the participating L2 writing instructors, share a large amount of conceptual overlap. This suggest that these teachers are capable of embracing diverse, flexible, and intersectional roles which allow them to exhibit leadership behavior. Another major insight gathered from this inquiry is that a wide range of collaborative professionalization activities and practices can effectively produce diverse leadership-related outcomes, such as improved teaching practices, gain of declarative knowledge, or enhanced empathy for students and their needs. A third major finding is related to how innovation, creativity, and adaptive change behavior become productive at the institutional level. Through analysis of teaching artifacts such as lesson materials or workshop handouts, the study uncovers that a variety of catalyzing conditions, with a supportive institutional culture being one of the most important ones, can allow best practices and innovation to become formalized beyond the collaborative space. This dissertation holds rich implications for teacher trainers, administrators, and instructors who wish to foster the role of writing teachers as leaders in their institutional contexts.