Conceptualising AI-reform professional learning communities in Chinese schools through the lion dance metaphor

As artificial intelligence (AI) moves into school education at increasing speed, we still know relatively little about how schools organise AI-related change amid policy expectations, technological uncertainty and teachers’ everyday work. Based on a qualitative case study of an AI education pilot school in Beijing, China, this article examines the formation and operation of an AI-reform professional learning community (PLC). Data were generated through semi-structured interviews, school-based observations and school documents. Through inductive thematic analysis, four recurring role functions were identified and subsequently conceptualised through the structural metaphor of the Chinese lion dance: drummers, lion heads, lion tails and audiences. The findings show that school leaders translated policy expectations and paced implementation; teacher leaders carried visible exploratory and pedagogical work; non-lead teachers extended reform through cautious and selective participation; and parents, while remaining outside the formal community, shaped ethical boundaries and conditions of trust. The article conceptualises AI-reform PLCs as issue-specific and role-differentiated communities that organise policy translation, teacher learning, leadership, participation and ethical negotiation around emerging technological change. It contributes a culturally grounded account of how school-based AI reform is collectively coordinated rather than simply implemented by individual teachers.