Performing The Dual Roles:A Case Study Of Teacher As ’Student Development Advisor’ In Senior Secondary School

"All teachers as student development advisors" is an important measure taken by Shanghai to respond to the establishment of student guidance system in high schools in China,which provides comprehensive guidance for students’ career and academic development.In practice,subject teachers who also assume the role of student development advisors need to understand and interpret the interactive nature of the two roles of "student development advisor" and "subject teacher",and adjust their relationship with each other.This is an important factor that affects the effectiveness of student guidance.However,theoretical discussions on this issue mainly focus on the construction of the system,the operation of the project,and the role of the student development advisor,while little attention is paid to the role of the "student development advisor" who also serves as a subject teacher.Therefore,this study explores how teachers understand and respond to their dual roles as student development advisor and subject teacher from the perspective of role boundaries.This study uses a qualitative research approach and case study strategies,selecting 20 teachers from Q High School in S City as participants.Data are collected through mainly interviews and then transcribed,encoded,and analyzed,and the findings are as follows::Firstly,the interpretation and positioning of the role of "student development advisor" are analyzed from three aspects: external expectations,internal understanding,and function implementation methods.The school expects the student development advisors to respond to student problems and view student growth and development from a continuous and developing perspective.Students expect advisors to provide emotional support and care during their joint participation in leisure activities.Parents have relatively low expectations and attention for student development advisors.Teachers themselves view their role as a teacher and guider,emphasizing the non-mandatory guidance of their paired students.In the interaction between external expectations and self-positioning,they mainly construct and establish guidance systems through counselling,classroom guidance,consultation and coordination with other groups,such as principle teachers,parents,to provide diverse guidance services for students.Secondly,the study focuses on the relationship between the two roles of "student development advisor" and "subject teacher" and discovers three types of role boundary relationships,which mainly reflect the similarity of role similarity from integration to separation.When the two roles integrate,the role boundary is thin,and the teacher combines the responsibilities of the subject teacher and student development advisor to provide comprehensive guidance to students;when the two roles separate,the role boundary is thick,and the teacher respectively assigns the guidance and teaching responsibilities to the student development advisor and subject teacher,and differentiates the guidance of paired students from other students.Between the thin and thick boundary,teachers overlaps the responsibilities of the student development advisor with subject teacher,resulting in mutual overlap of different aspects.To achieve preferred role boundaries,teachers adapt five strategies that is spatial,temporal,technological,communication,and behavior adjustments to manage the role boundaries and achieve the appearance and disappearance of the two roles.Thirdly,regarding the interaction between the two roles of subject teacher and student development advisor,the study analyzes the impact of the subject teacher and student development advisor on each other from the perspective of role spillover.On the one hand,the subject teacher can use their professional knowledge and skills and carry out the characteristics of their subject,relying on the teaching space and teaching relationships to establish a basis for the guidance of paired students,and conduct long-term tracking of them.On the other hand,the student development advisor can strengthen the adaptive teaching and personalized guidance through the paired relationship,stimulate the professional development of teachers through guidance achievability,and improve the motivation of students and the atmosphere of the classroom through emotions between advisors and students.During the role spillover process,the dual role of the subject teacher and student development advisor also brings many difficulties to teachers.Specifically,it includes time and space limitations,insufficient professional knowledge and skills,insufficient contact with students,and formalistic evaluation.To overcome these role difficulties,teachers suggest such measures as improving teacher training,formalized role construction,and improving evaluation methods.The study believes that the implementation of the role of "student development advisor" requires the participation and continuous efforts of various stakeholders.At the institutional level,it requires the strengthening of the construction of student guidance systems and the certification standards for guidance teachers;at the school level,it requires the establishment and improvement of the selection,training,pairing and evaluation mechanisms for student development advisors and subject teachers;at the individual level,teachers should actively utilize their subject teacher advantages and explore the various forms and methods of implementing the role of student development advisor,achieving the mutual improvement and positive interaction between the two roles.