The Relationship between Chinese Senior High School Principals’ Digital Humanities Leadership and Teachers’ Digital Humanities Teaching Practices in Northern Thailand: The Role of Cultural Identity and Cultural Heritage Digital Literacy
Abstract
Teachers’ digital humanities teaching practices are the key behaviour sustaining cultural heritage in classrooms. However, in Chinese senior high schools in Northern Thailand, teachers’ actual teaching behaviour remains low. Therefore, this study, conducted from April to June 2026, recruited teachers from these schools via purposive sampling and online questionnaires. It examined the relationship between principals’ digital humanities leadership and teachers’ digital humanities teaching practices and tested the mediating role of cultural identity and moderating role of cultural heritage digital literacy. Drawing on social identity, cultural memory, and absorptive capacity theories, this study surveyed teachers from 28 Chinese senior high schools in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and nearby areas, yielding 412 valid questionnaires (82.4% effective response rate). The results show that principals’ digital humanities leadership positively predicts teachers’ digital humanities teaching practices. Cultural identity mediates this relationship, while cultural heritage digital literacy moderates the path from leadership to cultural identity and the mediated effect. Thus, within diaspora Chinese school settings, cultural heritage’s digital survival relies not merely on technology but on principals’ capacity to translate technology into internalizable cultural meanings for teachers. Finally, this study offers empirical evidence for extending digital humanities from higher to basic education and for dialogue between leadership and cultural identity theories.
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