Teacher leadership in context: Its relationship with social, material, and human resources in schools implementing reform

This exploratory study presents an examination of the relationships between and among teacher leadership and social, material, and human resources. This study builds upon previous research on leadership, teacher leadership, and organizational context, the latter of which is considered through the lenses of distributed and organizational leadership. This study answers the following research questions: How does active teacher leadership influence a school's human resources, in terms of reported changes in teaching practice? What is the relationship between a school's social and material resources and its implementation of teacher leadership? These questions were answered and this investigation conducted through a set of seven comparative case studies of teacher leadership initiatives in schools.;Findings indicate that teacher leaders engage in two types of functions---support and developmental. Support functions assist their colleagues' teaching by setting the stage for successful teaching but not by influencing teaching practice. Developmental functions influence teaching practice and thereby increase human resources as the teacher leaders' contribute to the development of their colleagues' instructional knowledge and skills.;Which functions teacher leaders are able to engage in is determined by their access to contextual social and material resources; these resources include support from administrators, relationships with colleagues, time to enact the teacher leader role, and involvement in professional development. This study establishes that teacher leadership positively influences a school's human resources when these contextual factors allow for teacher leaders to engage in developmental functions. Therefore, social and material resources impact whether or not teacher leaders can improve teaching practice.