NEGOTIATING AUTONOMY: AN INTERPRETATIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS' WORK AUTONOMY IN CHINESE PUBLIC KINDERGARTENS
Keywords:
Teacher work autonomy, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), Public kindergarten teachers, Principal leadership, Professional development, ChinaAbstract
Teacher work autonomy is widely recognized as a key foundation for teachers' professional development and high-quality education and has become an important topic in early childhood education research. However, previous studies have predominantly adopted quantitative approaches, focusing on the antecedents and outcomes of teacher work autonomy while paying limited attention to teachers' lived experiences and meaning-making in everyday educational practice. To address this gap, this study employed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore how teachers experience work autonomy under kindergarten principals' leadership. Sixteen teachers from public kindergartens in China participated in the study. Data were collected through open-ended written responses and semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that teacher work autonomy is not a fixed professional right but a dynamic experience continuously shaped, negotiated, and reconstructed through interactions among organizational policies, principal leadership, and educational practice. Although teachers perceived a certain degree of professional discretion, they also encountered multiple constraints arising from organizational management, institutional regulations, and administrative requirements. In response, they continuously adapted, negotiated, and adjusted their professional practices. By revealing the complexity of teachers' autonomy experiences, this study offers a new perspective on understanding teacher professional development in Chinese public kindergartens and provides practical implications for leadership practices and organizational environments that support teachers' professional autonomy.References
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