https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/18582 2026-04-23T04:37:31Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145609 Title: Voices from research and practice : leadership, professional development and policy insights for sustainable school improvement in Malta Authors: Calleja, James Abstract: This essay examines leadership, professional development (PD), and sustainable school improvement in Malta. Drawing on 22 selected studies published over two decades in the Malta Review of Educational Research (MRER), alongside the author's professional experience of working with schools, the essay brings research and practice into dialogue to explore how decentralisation, school autonomy, and collaborative professional learning have been conceptualised and enacted. It highlights persistent tensions between policy intentions and school realities, particularly in relation to leadership capacity, teacher agency, and the conditions necessary for meaningful PD. Through a focused discussion of collaborative Lesson Study, the essay illustrates how schools can operate as centres of inquiry and learning when leadership is enacted as shared practice. The analysis concludes by distilling key policy insights, arguing that sustainable improvement depends on trust, coherence, and sustained investment in school-based professional learning communities chat empower educators as agents of change. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145607 Title: Being a teacher : the complexities that shape teachers’ roles and identities Authors: Attard Tonna, Michelle Abstract: The professional identity of the twenty-first century teacher is increasingly shaped by policy reform, accountability regimes, technological change, and expanding social expectations. These pressures have intensified processes of de-professionalisation, positioning teachers as technical implementers of externally imposed mandates and undermining professional autonomy and judgement. This essay examines teacher professional identity as a dynamic, negotiated construct and argues that professional agency is the key mechanism through which ·teachers can resist de-professionalisation and reclaim their role as autonomous, ethical practitioners. Drawing on eleven contributions published in the Malta Review of Educational Research, the essay analyses how teacher identity is shaped across domains including specialisation, well-being, reform implementation, research engagement, ethics of care, and social justice. The analysis conceptualises agency as a relational and practice-based capacity that enables teachers to interpret policy, redesign curriculum, and sustain inclusive educational practice. The essay concludes that strengthening teacher agency is essential for supporting professional identity and long-term educational quality. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145602 Title: Engaging with the MRER 20th anniversary archive : reflections on three educational journeys Authors: Borg, Carmel; Attard Tonna, Michelle; Calleja, James Abstract: This book brings together three scholarly contributions that, while addressing different educational domains, are united by a shared concern with agency, inclusion, and the ethical purposes of education. The essays collectively examine how education systems respond to change, diversity, and inequality – particularly within the constraints and possibilities of a small-state context like Malta. Rather than offering prescriptive solutions or universal models, this volume foregrounds education as a relational, moral, and political practice, shaped by lived experience, institutional structures, and historical trajectories. The essays explore leadership and professional development in schools, teacher identity and professional agency, and the evolving discourse of inclusive societies. Together, they reveal how educational change is negotiated at the intersection of policy, practice, and values, and how educators and institutions struggle with tensions between autonomy and accountability, inclusion and stratification, reform and professional judgement. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145597 Title: Education, professional agency, and inclusive societies : insights from research and practice in a small-state context Authors: Borg, Carmel; Attard Tonna, Michelle; Calleja, James Abstract: This book brings together three scholarly contributions that, while addressing different educational domains, are united by a shared concern with agency, inclusion, and the ethical purposes of education. The essays collectively examine how education systems respond to change, diversity, and inequality – particularly within the constraints and possibilities of a small-state context like Malta. Rather than offering prescriptive solutions or universal models, this volume foregrounds education as a relational, moral, and political practice, shaped by lived experience, institutional structures, and historical trajectories. The essays explore leadership and professional development in schools, teacher identity and professional agency, and the evolving discourse of inclusive societies. Together, they reveal how educational change is negotiated at the intersection of policy, practice, and values, and how educators and institutions struggle with tensions between autonomy and accountability, inclusion and stratification, reform and professional judgement. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z