Authorised Inversion: Reverse Mentoring for Teachers Digital Competence in Chinese Schools and Universities

Reverse mentoring lets a junior colleague teach a senior, yet it often unfolds in organisations where rank still matters. This conceptual paper examines how digital knowledge can move upward among teachers in Chinese schools and universities without requiring the status order to change. We propose authorised inversion: a configuration in which organisational sanction makes upward teaching legitimate, face-work protects the senior's standing, and renqing-based obligations help sustain the junior's contribution. The argument distinguishes knowledge from status and treats sanction, face-work and reciprocity as separate explanatory conditions. Fourteen propositions trace participation, engagement, reciprocal learning and organisational uptake. A purposive probe of existing studies identifies evidence for several premises and related outcomes, but none of the complete propositions has been directly tested. Comparative research on teacher development also cautions against assuming that reverse mentoring outperforms other forms of collaboration. We set out the model's boundary conditions, observable indicators and a multilevel research design for Chinese schools and universities.