What is agency? Conceptualizing professional agency at work
TL;DR: The concept of agency has become widely used in learning research, especially in studies addressing professional and workplace learning, but also in policy discussion on how to promote individually meaningful careers and life-courses amid rapid changes in working life as discussed by the authors.
About: This article is published in Educational Research Review.The article was published on 2013-12-01. It has received 507 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Agency (sociology) & Conceptualization.
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TL;DR: In this article, a two-year study into teacher agency against the backdrop of large-scale educational reform is presented, focusing on teachers' beliefs in order to understand the dynamics of teacher agency and factors that contribute to its promotion and enhancement.
Abstract: There is an ongoing tension within educational policy worldwide between countries that seek to reduce the opportunities for teachers to exert judgement and control over their own work, and those who seek to promote it. Some see teacher agency as a weakness within the operation of schools and seek to replace it with evidence-based and data-driven approaches, whereas others argue that because of the complexities of situated educational practices, teacher agency is an indispensable element of good and meaningful education. While the ideological debate about the shape and form of teacher professionalism is important, it is equally important to understand the dynamics of teacher agency and the factors that contribute to its promotion and enhancement. In this paper, we draw from a two-year study into teacher agency against the backdrop of large-scale educational reform – the implementation of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence – in order to explore these questions. We focus on teachers’ beliefs in order to ge...
639 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a qualitative meta-study reported here investigated Finnish vocational teachers' professional agency amid an educational reform and found that teachers' agency could remain stable or could change over time, and agency drew on various resources (e.g. teacher identity and the organizational management culture).
260 citations
TL;DR: This article conducted a meta-analysis of distributed leadership research from 2002 to 2013 and found that the studies had been unable to conceptualise distributed leadership or empirically outline its application. But they did not identify the two research gaps identified by Bennett et al. (2003) which constitute the focus of the present review, which attempts to determine whether recent research has been able to fill these gaps.
Abstract: This article provides a meta-analysis of research conducted on distributed leadership from 2002 to 2013. It continues the review of distributed leadership commissioned by the English National College for School Leadership (NCSL) (Distributed Leadership: A Desk Study, Bennett et al., 2003), which identified two gaps in the research during the 1996–2002 period. The review found that the studies had been unable to conceptualise distributed leadership or empirically outline its application. The two research gaps identified by Bennett et al. (2003) constitute the focus of the present review, which attempts to determine whether recent research has been able to fill these gaps. Based on the findings of the present meta-analysis, the authors recommend directions for future studies on distributed leadership.
201 citations
Cites background from "What is agency? Conceptualizing pro..."
...The conceptualisation of agency presented in this article is based on a sociocultural approach that emphasises subjectivity at both individual and collective levels (see e.g. Eteläpelto et al., 2013)....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the possibilities of combining theories of inclusive pedagogy and teacher agency for developing teachers as agents of inclusion and social justice in teacher education, including nurturing commitment to social justice as part of teachers' sense of purpose; developing competencies in inclusive pedagogogical approaches, including working with others; developing relational agency for transforming the conditions of teachers’ workplaces; and a capacity to reflect on their own practices and environments when seeking to support the learning of all students.
Abstract: Policies around the world increasingly call for teachers to become ‘agents of change’, often linked to social justice agendas. However, there is little clarity about the kind of competencies such agency involves or how it can be developed in teacher education. This paper draws on theories of teacher agency and inclusive pedagogy to clarify the meaning of teachers as agents of change in the context of inclusion and social justice. Inclusive practice requires the collaboration of teachers and others such as families and other professionals. Agents of change work purposefully with others to challenge the status quo and develop social justice and inclusion. We discuss the possibilities of combining theories of inclusive pedagogy and teacher agency for developing teachers as agents of inclusion and social justice in teacher education. These possibilities include: 1) nurturing commitment to social justice as part of teachers’ sense of purpose; 2) developing competencies in inclusive pedagogical approaches, including working with others; 3) developing relational agency for transforming the conditions of teachers’ workplaces; and 4) a capacity to reflect on their own practices and environments when seeking to support the learning of all students. Keywords: teacher agency, inclusive pedagogy, teacher competence, teacher education, educational change (Published: 1 September 2015) Citation: Education Inquiry (EDUI) 2015, 6 , 27311, http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/edui.v6.27311
176 citations
01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: For two years Naomi Klein wrote a weekly column for Canada's leading newspaper, the Globe & Mail (syndicated worldwide, in the Guardian in the UK) as discussed by the authors, which has a truly international scope covering everything from the Zapatistas' rebellion in Mexico to the Social Centres in Italy, from the biggest peaceful protest demos since the 1960s to the gassings and shootings at Genoa.
Abstract: The story of the rise of the movement that wanted accountable, improved globalization. For two years Naomi Klein wrote a weekly column for Canada's leading newspaper, the Globe & Mail (syndicated worldwide, in the Guardian in the UK). She has, by selecting, rewriting and rearranging these columns, prepared what amounts to a first-hand historical record of the gradual rise to prominence of the anti-global-corporatism movement, and of its most notable successes and failures. It has a truly international scope, covering everything from the Zapatistas' rebellion in Mexico to the Social Centres in Italy, from the biggest peaceful protest demos since the 1960s to the gassings and shootings at Genoa. Naomi analyses developments in local democracy, in law enforcement, in privatisation laws, in capital migrations, in union behaviour, in marketing, in summitry. She gets close to the suited summits - the WTO, the G8, the IMF, NAFTA. She looks at bioterrorism, pollution, hypocrisy, fear and confusion. It is a portrait, or rather the underlying negative, of the planet's torrid time between the Seattle summit and the world-changing events of 11 September 2001. It makes for dramatic, immediate, indispensable history writing, and reading.
175 citations
References
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Book•
01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: This work has shown that legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice is not confined to midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, non-drinking alcoholics and the like.
Abstract: In this important theoretical treatist, Jean Lave, anthropologist, and Etienne Wenger, computer scientist, push forward the notion of situated learning - that learning is fundamentally a social process. The authors maintain that learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process they call legitimate peripheral participation (LPP). Learners participate in communities of practitioners, moving toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. LPP provides a way to speak about crucial relations between newcomers and old-timers and about their activities, identities, artefacts, knowledge and practice. The communities discussed in the book are midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, and recovering alcoholics, however, the process by which participants in those communities learn can be generalised to other social groups.
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TL;DR: In this paper, Cole and Scribner discuss the role of play in children's development and play as a tool and symbol in the development of perception and attention in a prehistory of written language.
Abstract: Introduction Michael Cole and Sylvia Scribner Biographical Note on L S Vygotsky Basic Theory and Data 1 Tool and Symbol in Child Development 2 The Development of Perception and Attention 3 Mastery of Memory and Thinking 4 Internalization of Higher Psychological Functions 5 Problems of Method Educational Implications 6 Interaction between Learning and Development 7 The Role of Play in Development 8 The Prehistory of Written Language Afterword Vera John-Steiner and Ellen Souberman Notes Vygotsky's Works Index
32,902 citations
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TL;DR: Identity in practice, modes of belonging, participation and non-participation, and learning communities: a guide to understanding identity in practice.
Abstract: This book presents a theory of learning that starts with the assumption that engagement in social practice is the fundamental process by which we get to know what we know and by which we become who we are. The primary unit of analysis of this process is neither the individual nor social institutions, but the informal 'communities of practice' that people form as they pursue shared enterprises over time. To give a social account of learning, the theory explores in a systematic way the intersection of issues of community, social practice, meaning, and identity. The result is a broad framework for thinking about learning as a process of social participation. This ambitious but thoroughly accessible framework has relevance for the practitioner as well as the theoretician, presented with all the breadth, depth, and rigor necessary to address such a complex and yet profoundly human topic.
30,397 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the self: ontological security and existential anxiety are discussed, as well as the trajectory of the self, risk, and security in high modernity, and the emergence of life politics.
Abstract: Acknowledgements Introduction 1. The contours of high modernity 2. The self: ontological security and existential anxiety 3. The trajectory of the self 4. Fate, risk, and security 5. The sequestration of experience 6. Tribulations of the self 7. The emergence of life politics Notes Glossary of concepts Index.
12,710 citations
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01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: In the context of a post-traditional order, the self becomes a reflexive project as mentioned in this paper, which is not a term which has much applicability to traditional cultures, because it implies choice within plurality of possible options, and is 'adopted' rather than 'handed down'.
Abstract: The reflexivity of modernity extends into core of the self. Put in another way, in the context of a post-traditional order, the self becomes a reflexive project. One concerns the primacy of lifestyle — and its inevitability for the individual agent. Lifestyle is not a term which has much applicability to traditional cultures, because it implies choice within plurality of possible options, and is 'adopted' rather than 'handed down'. Lifestyle choices and life planning are not just 'in', or constituent of, the day-to-day life of social agents, but form institutional settings which help to shape their actions. Of course, for all individuals and groups, life chances condition lifestyle choices. Life planning is a specific example of a more general phenomenon that author shall discuss in some detail in subsequent chapter as the 'colonisation of the future'. In the reflexive project of the self, the narrative of self-identity is inherently fragile. Moreover, the pure relationship contains internal tensions and even contradictions.
12,430 citations