Teacher's Professional Responsibilities and Their Construction Under Quality Assurance System in the Chinese Mainland

Since 1980s when the New Managerialism was popular, improving educational quality through accountability has become more and more common in the global educational reforms. As its counterparts, Chinese government also pays great attention to quality in education these years. The moral dimensions of teaching have been under great challenges because governments all around the world attempt to improve quality through accountability mechanism.;This study is located within the context of educational quality assurance (QA) system in Mainland China. With the moral dimensions of teaching as academic perspective and seeing through professional responsibility of teachers, this research interviewed 35 teachers in QA system in 2 Schools in H City. With the exploration of teachers' understandings and fulfillments of professional responsibilities, this empirical work aimed at uncovering teachers' perception and practice of the moral dimensions of teaching. Data is mainly collected by interviews.;The research found that teachers' moral concerns were three folded. Firstly, the core concern was students. Teachers wanted to take the responsibilities in teaching, in promoting students' moral development and caring their students. Secondly, teachers also emphasized on collegial collaboration. Sharing teaching resources, inheriting traditional teaching methods which could contribute to test score improvement, and giving emotional support were the major themes in their interaction with each others. Thirdly, teacher-parents relationship was one-sided. Parents' responsibilities transferred to teachers in those families with lower socioeconomic status.;With the framework developed by Howard Gardner and his colleagues in the 'Good Work Project', this research explored indigenous understandings of four components of the professional realm, they were domain, field, stakeholders, and individual's moral concerns. Our study found that the moral dimensions of teaching have been challenged greatly by the tight controls from domain and field. Under the powerful domination of the government-directed domain, school as the field has turned into the extension of the government accountability controls. As a result, teachers were put into an accountability network that controlled both the process and the result of their work. This network was built by the central government and implemented by local government with its subordinate schools. In the tensions of different accountability requirements, government and students became key stakeholders of teachers' work. As for the collaboration among teachers, an instrumental cooperation which meant to answer for government's accountability has been developed. Parents, as one of the stakeholders, had few formal ways to ask teachers to be accountable. In teachers' daily practice, the fulfillments of responsibilities were accountability-directed. The moral concerns of teachers were squeezed by accountability agendas which were set by governments.;In the meantime, this study unfolds the contents of the moral dimensions of teaching. It reveals how performance accountability influences teachers' work through controlling both the working processes and working results. It also presents indigenous understanding of the framework developed in 'Good Work Project'. As for teacher professionalism, managerial professionalism was found to be the characteristics of teachers' work in our study. Based on these observations, there are necessities to clarify the meaning of key concepts and coordinating different accountability requirements. Teachers' moral responsibilities should count more than external control in the effort to improve educational quality. Accordingly, empowering teachers and respecting teachers' professional autonomy are important in quality assurance system.;Key words: Education quality assurance; Accountability; The moral dimensions of teaching; Professional responsibilities; Good work.