Teacher Leadership Otherwise: Problematizing Teacher Leadership Practices

This chapter shares my personal journey, which begins from a universal I attempted to foster and the struggles I faced through the doctoral program to problematize it. TL has extensively been studied under Euro-Western paradigms, analyzing how teachers’ belongingness practices of leadership in and out the classroom through a decolonial perspective tension the top-down approach of TL. Unpacking what teachers have to say about their TL practices based on their specific constructions of belongingness. It will contribute to delinking from the canonical theorization of TL in ELT. Furthermore, it will problematize TL from a bottom-up approach where ELT teachers unveil their struggles to enact TL using their life experiences and practices.