Teacher leadership in higher education: A theoretical review

Abstract

Higher education is an essential context for studying teacher leadership. Itis a dynamic field that creates a challenging continuously renewed workenvironment for teachers with multiple changing roles and targets, includingcross-boundary teaching, development work, and leadership assignments.The objective of this theoretical review is to investigate the specific featuresof teacher leadership discussed in the higher education literature and, indoing so, generate a theoretical model. With reference to previous literaturereviews focusing on teacher leadership in other contexts, this study presentsa theoretical review of 77 peer-reviewed articles on the topic of teacherleadership solely in the higher education context. A key outcome of the review is the presentation of a new model of teacher leadership that incorporates possible manifestations of teacher leaders’ influence and reflects peculiarities of teacher leadership in the higher education context, such as discipline advocacy and quality stewardship as principles of leadership, and identity management as a contingency dimension in facilitating leadership practice. In guiding the future orientation of teacher leadership research in higher education, the study introduces the concept of polarity to discuss controversies within teacher leadership in higher education.