99. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Paper
An Exploration of Teacher Agency for Inclusive Education: a Qualitative Analysis of Italian General and Special Education Teachers’ Perspective
Marco Andreoli1, Luca Ghirotto3, Jennifer A. Kurth2, Angelo Lascioli1
1University of Verona, Italy; 2University of Kansas; 3USL-IRCCSi Reggio Emilia,
Presenting Author: Andreoli, Marco
Objectives
Teacher agency is a rather abstract concept, and it has been extensively theorized (e.g. Aiello & Sibilio, 2018; Eteläpelto, 2013; Priestley et al., 2015a; 2015b), yet its practical unfolding in an actual inclusive school setting remains largely unexplored. Recent literature reviews on teacher agency for inclusive education have shed light on the phenomenon (Miller et al., 2020; Li & Rupper, 2020; Andreoli et al, 2022). However, a comprehensive empirically based theorization is still lacking. The purpose of this study is to explore teacher agency for inclusive education at work, by collecting and analyzing teachers' experiences and perspectives. To this end, we have tried to respond to the following research questions: 1) How does teacher agency for inclusive education unfold in inclusive school settings? 2) How can teachers “make a difference” and contribute to more equitable opportunities for all students? 3) What strategies are employed in this process? 4) Is teacher agency enacted differently by general and special education teachers?
Theoretical Framework
According to Pantić (2015; 2017a), Pantić and Florian (2015) teacher agency is a transformative process aimed at fostering social justice in schools, which are more and more characterized by increasing cultural and social diversity. When enacting teacher agency, teachers act strategically, removing the risks of school failure and social marginalization, promoting academic achievements, and ensuring better opportunities for all students (Pantić, 2015).
School systems and teachers as change-makers are mutually constituted, meaning that teachers act not only in but also through a particular school context. As Biesta and Tedder (2007) put it, “the achievement of agency will always result from the interplay of individual efforts, available resources, and contextual and structural ‘factors’ as they come together in particular and, in a sense, always unique situations” (pp.137). In this vein, several environmental elements have emerged in the literature as relevant factors impacting teacher agency for inclusive education. Pantić (2017b) notes that teacher agency is influenced at the micro level by personal factors, i.e., teacher attitudes and beliefs, at the meso level by school/context-specific ideologies and practices, and at the macro level by educational policies, curriculum, etc. The most critical factors lie at the meso level and concern relationships and cooperation among different school actors. They are, nonetheless, also more "malleable" and unlike structural elements, they can be modified by new practices. Other factors facilitating or hampering teacher agency for inclusive education have been mapped in three different literature reviews (Miller et al., 2020; Li & Rupper, 2020; Andreoli et al, 2022). Barriers include the absence of structural resources, the dominant ableist culture, the perceived inadequacy in the relationship with the students with disability, the special education teacher's unpreparedness on specific learning contents, the marginalization of the special education teacher, the absence of shared planning, and the lack of school administration support. On the other hand, teachers proved they can change existing practices thanks to resilience, teamwork, and student-centered ideologies (Andreoli et al., 2022). Yet, how do they do that? What actions do they take? What happens when teachers make a change and make enhanced educational opportunities for all students possible? Miller et al. (2020) and Li & Rupper (2020) argue that for a better understanding of the phenomenon, researchers should identify specific “actions” informing teacher agency. Building on these premises, we collected a large body of empirical data to gain practical knowledge on transformative actions and agency-driven outcomes in existing inclusive school settings.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedData Sources
This paper draws from 614 responses to the following open-ended question: Do you feel you have ever made a difference in inclusive school settings? Can you recall one or more episodes? This question was included in an online questionnaire administered via Google Forms, as part of the “Special Education Teacher Agency Project” carried out by the University of Verona (Italy). After receiving ethical approval from the Ethics Committee of the University of Verona, an invitation was sent to 6000 Italian teachers and 614 participated in the study. The sample includes 124 in-service general education teachers and 490 special education teachers working in inclusive settings. Participants vary according to the school level, years of experience, subject area, and certifications.
Data Analysis
The framework method (Gale et al., 2013) was utilized to analyze the dataset. This allowed for thematic analyses of teachers’ experiences about change-making for inclusive education. Researchers identified and compared descriptive labels, developed working themes, and then grouped and organized the themes into a matrix. The process was reiterated until a consensus was reached. The matrix design is conceived in a way to respond to the research questions and to capture the practical unfolding of teacher agency for inclusive education as a phenomenon.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings614 Italian teachers responded to the question. Framework analyses allowed for the identification of four inter-related categories: enabling conditions, strategies, outcomes, and levels. Enabling conditions refer to contextual and personal factors that place teachers in a better position for taking impactful actions that enhance inclusive education. Outcomes refer to accomplishments achieved by teachers with their students and actual changes produced in the school context. Strategies are actions carried out by teachers that, along with enabling conditions, make changes in school possible. Lastly, levels capture the direction taken by teachers actions when impacting the school, including different school stakeholders inside and outside the school, i.e., school personnel, student population, parents, professionals and the community.
These four categories are in relationship with one another, forming a matrix. Thanks to the application of specific strategies and/or by virtue of enabling conditions, teachers produce educational, relational, and context-related outcomes, impacting different subjects’ groups. This matrix provides insights into how teacher agency unfolds in inclusive school settings and it suggests a number of strategies employed by teacher when enacting teacher agency for inclusive education.
ReferencesAndreoli, M., Zaniboni, L., Ghirotto, L., & Lascioli, A. (2022). A Scoping Review on Teacher Agency for Inclusive Education: Mapping Existing Evidence and Conceptual Frameworks, Form@are, 22(3), 9-29. https://doi.org/10.36253/form-13288
Biesta, G., & Tedder, M. (2007). Agency and learning in the lifecourse: towards an ecological perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, 39(2), 132–149. https://doi.org/10.1080/02660830.2007.11661545.
Eteläpelto, A., Vähäsantanen, K., Hökkä, P., & Paloniemi, S. (2013). What is agency? Conceptualizing professional agency at work. Educational Research Review, 10, 45–65.
Gale, N.K., Heath, G., Cameron, E. et al. (2013). Using the framework method for the analysis of qualitative data in multi-disciplinary health research. BMC Med Res Methodol 13, 117. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-13-117
Li, L., & Ruppar, A. (2020). Conceptualizing teacher agency for inclusive education: a systematic and international review. Teacher Education and Special Education, 44(1), 42–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/0888406420926976.
Miller, A. L., Wilt, C. L., Allcock, H. C., Kurth, J. A., Morningstar, M. E., & Ruppar, A. L. (2020). Teacher agency for inclusive education: an international scoping review. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2020.1789766.
OECD (2005). Teachers matter: attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers. OECD: Paris.
Pantić, N. (2015). A model for study of teacher agency for social justice. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 21(6), 759–778. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015.1044332.
Pantic, N. (2017a). An exploratory study of teacher agency for social justice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 66, 219–230.
Pantić, N. (2017b). Reconciling rigour and impact by collaborative research design: study of teacher agency. International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 40(4), 329–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727X.2015.1113250.
Pantić, N., & Florian, L. (2015). Developing teachers as agents of inclusion and social justice. Education Inquiry, 6(3), 333-351. https://doi.org/10.3402/edui.v6.27311.
Priestley, M., Biesta, G., & Robinson, S. (2015a). Teacher Agency: an ecological approach. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Priestley, M., Biesta, G., & Robinson, S. (2015b). Teacher agency: what is it and why does it matter? In R. Kneyber, & J. Evers (Eds.), Flip the system: changing education from the bottom up. (pp. 134–148). London: Routledge.
UN (2006). Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
UNESCO (2000). The right education. Towards Education for All throughout life. Paris: UNESCO.
UNESCO (2005). Guidelines for inclusion: ensuring access to Education for All. Paris: UNESCO.
99. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Paper
The Role of History Teachers’ Agency and Self-Efficacy in Teaching Historical Thinking Introduction
Latife Eda Kuzuca
university of reading, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Kuzuca, Latife Eda
There is increasing attention paid to improving students’ historical thinking (HT) competences in the UK. With this, there are several definitions and understanding of HT in the literature from all around the world. Among British history educators and researchers, for instance, HT refers to several aspects of disciplinary-based history teaching, In the United States, Wineburg (2001) defined HT as a systematic recognition process that the past is different from the present, and it has several distinctive and disciplinary procedures to make meaning about the past. In the present study, this term has been framed as teaching history in a way that equips young people with a set of abilities such as asking perceptive questions, weighing evidence, thinking critically, sifting arguments and judgement. Teaching HT had gained considerable interest in history teaching communities because of what it entails and its potential benefits. As HT involves processes such as examining historical sources, negotiating different perspectives, and resolving historical values with present judgements, it is essential for students’ cognitive development (Lee, 2011). From a social perspective, learning HT may equip and sensitise young people to understand the differences around them and to learn how to live with them peacefully and respectfully (Levesque, 2016). The roles of teachers’ self-efficacy and agency have been oftentimes found to be decisive factors in their decisions of teaching HT.
Although the popularity of HT within the history teaching circles, existing literature gives very little considerations to the conceptions and ideas of history teachers of teaching historical thinking and its influences on their practices. However, teachers play a vital role in this process as they are the meditators who are responsible for interpreting and enacting the curriculum (Harris & Reynolds, 2018; Monte- Sano et al., 2014). Although teachers’ role in this process is highly critical, the literature is quite limited in terms of how history teachers adopt the demands of official policies into their school curricula (Harris & Reynolds, 2018). Thus, it will be important to focus on the perspectives and behaviours of teachers associated with HT to provide further insights in this field. One of a few comprehensive studies exploring history teachers' thinking was conducted by Husbands et al. (2003). However, since then, the field of history teaching has seen many changes. Therefore, a new and updated study exploring history teachers' perspectives, specifically for teaching HT, can make an important contribution to the field.
This study, therefore, aims to investigate the perspectives and approaches of history teachers towards teaching HT by raising and evaluating the question of what influences the decisions teachers make in terms of teaching historical thinking. Teachers' decision-making processes involves the process of taking action according to the specific intentions (Seixas, 2012). Therefore, at this point, the concept of teacher agency and self-efficacy become important aspects of teacher decision-making processes (Biesta &Tedder, 2007; Robinson, 2012). In this research, teacher agency is associated with their decisions and actions in relation to improving their teaching based on the new ideas and changes – more specifically HT. Teachers’ self-efficacy also affects their decisions for the selection of curriculum, teaching strategies, and their general behaviours in the classroom (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). Teachers’ sense of efficacy may shape their goals and their level of effort and desire that they invest in teaching in the classroom (Hoy, 2004). Therefore, teachers with higher self-efficacy are more likely to choose to apply classroom enquiries and student- centred teaching methods (which are very beneficial for teaching HT) to improve students’ learning.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis research has been conducted with the qualitative approach by adopting constructivist and interpretivist paradigms. Ten history teachers have been chosen by using convenience sampling and were interviewed twice using online applications.
During the first interviews, semi-structured questions and mind map approaches have been used. Additionally, the mind map approach utilised by asking ‘how do you go back teaching historical thinking in your classroom’ was helpful in this study to obtain diverse data. This approach was beneficial to gather insight about the ways participants see and construct their classroom practices such as reflecting their beliefs, experiences, and prejudices as well as understanding the subject (Kinchin et al., 2000).
In the second round of interviews, the narrative approach has been utilised by asking ‘how is your understanding of historical thinking has been developed over your career’. The decision to use narrative approach as a data collection method in this research is based on the features that Cole and Knowles (2001) explained for research designs exploring people life histories and their change and progress in their lives. In the present study, it is intended to "advance understanding about the complex interactions between individuals' lives and the institutional and societal contexts in which they are lived" (Cole & Knowles, 2001:126). This method was beneficial for understanding the participants' experiences and motivations over time, by considering their individual, educational, professional, and social contexts. This method mainly helped to answer the third research question, as participants try to explain processes related to the influential factors on their decisions which lead them to teach HT or not. The analysis of data has been done manually by using deductive and inductive coding approaches.
To determine teachers' level of agency, it is elaborated if they reflected their ideas on historical thinking in their teaching through the analyses of the schemes of work (when applicable) and the interview discussions. If not, then they were asked if they have any future plans or aspirations to do so. In terms of self-efficacy, teachers’ comments, and discussions related to the extent of their happiness with their current practice and the schemes of works have been associated with their level of self-efficacy.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsIn this study, a direct proportion was found between the level of agency and self-efficacy of the history teachers and their willingness and attempts to teach HT in their lessons. While teachers with a high level of agency and self-efficacy tend to engage with HT, teachers with a lower level of agency and self-efficacy were found to be hesitant to teach HT. Four categories were identified in which teachers were able to manifest their agency in teaching HT in the current educational climate amongst history teachers in England; and they are innovators, practitioners, exam-oriented teachers, and content coverers. The reason behind these different categories seemed to be related to the strong and iterative relationships between teachers' individual mechanisms (i.e., beliefs, values, purposes, self-efficacy etc.) and external contexts (i.e., accountability, performativity workload, time issues etc.). Although particular external mechanisms (i.e., accountability, performativity) negatively impacted the content coverer and exam-oriented teachers' decisions for teaching HT, innovators and practitioners were able todetach themselves from these negative factors and showed a good engagement with HT.
Findings showed that particular positive external contexts (such as supportive and collaborative working environments and sustainable relationships with their professional community of practices) and their internal systems (i.e., beliefs, self-efficacy) influenced teachers positively to be able to act more agentic in bringing change and improvement. However, this did not apply to the content coverer and exam-oriented teachers. The data showed that these teachers' external contexts (i.e., unsupportive, and isolated working environment, lack of professional network and guidance) led them to adopt a low level of efficacy and this reduced their agency while shaping their practices for teaching HT. These factors affected teachers’ decisions, in particular content and pedagogy, in their practice. This study highlighted the importance of teacher training, sustainable professional development activities and professional networks for helping teachers to become forward-thinking, innovative, and professional teachers.
ReferencesBiesta, G., & Tedder, M. (2007). Agency and learning in the lifecourse: Towards an ecological perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, 39(2), 132-149. https://doi.org/10.1080/02660830.2007.11661545
Cole, A. L., & Knowles, J. G. (2001). Lives in context: The art of life history research. AltaMira Press. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2002-00023-000
Harris, R., & Reynolds, R. (2017). Exploring teachers’ curriculum decision making: Insights from history education. Oxford Review of Education, 44(2), 139-155. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2017.1352498
Husbands, C., Kitson, A., & Pendry, A. (2003). Understanding history teaching (1st ed.). Open University Press.
Hoy, H. W. (2004). What Preservice teachers should know about recent theory and research in motivation? [Paper presentation] American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA.
Kinchin, I. M., Hay, D. B., & Adams, A. (2000). How a qualitative approach to concept map analysis can be used to aid learning by illustrating patterns of conceptual development. Educational Research, 42(1), 43-57. doi:10.1080/001318800363908
Lee, P. (2011). The future of the past: Why history education matters. L. Perikleous & D. Shemilt (Eds.). Association for Historical Dialogue and Research.
Levesque, S. (2016). Why should historical thinking matter to students? Agora, 51(2), 4-8. https://doi.org/10.3316/ielapa.101510871640270
Monte-Sano, C., De La Paz, S., & Felton, M. (2014). Implementing a disciplinary-literacy curriculum for US history: Learning from expert middle school teachers in diverse classrooms. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 46(4), 540-575. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2014.904444
Robinson, S. (2012). Constructing teacher agency in response to the constraints of education policy: Adoption and adaptation. The Curriculum Journal, 23(2), 231-245. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2012.678702
Seixas, P. (2013). Historical agency as a problem for researchers in history education. Antíteses, 5(10). https://doi.org/10.5433/1984-3356.2012v5n10p537
Tschannen-Moran, M., & Hoy, A. W. (2001). Teacher efficacy: Capturing an elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(7), 783-805. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0742- 051x(01)00036-1
Wineburg, S. S. (2001). Historical thinking and other unnatural acts: Charting the future of teaching the past (Critical perspectives on the past). Temple University Press.
99. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Paper
Teacher Agency in Digital Age: A Systematic Review of Technology-integrated Teaching
Qiandong Zhou
durham university, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Zhou, Qiandong
Digital technology, as a form of infrastructure, has greatly facilitated sharing of knowledge and information. However, these technologies were not invented for education but can be appropriated for it because researchers, including Henry Jenkins (Jenkins, 2006; Squire & Jenkins, 2003), have observed that learning can be developed through engagement in such platforms. Selwyn points out that the introduction of technology in education is often approached in a deterministic way, which leads to the polarisation of debates and practices. The role of teachers in such transformation is increasingly examined. They are acknowledged as having the capacity to practice agentively in their classroom for educational change (Severance et al., 2016; Van der Heijden et al., 2015), and they are considered the most important agent affecting the implementation of digital education. Teacher agency is commonly referred to as teachers' capacity to make choices and implement actions to realise changes (e.g., Emirbayer & Mische, 1998; Eteläpelto et al., 2013). Although the number of publications on teacher agency has increased significantly in recent years, there is a lack of scholarly consensus on the relationship between digital technology and teacher agency, and mediating factors in shaping teacher agency within technology-integrated teaching. In order to address these gaps, a systematic review was conducted with the following objectives:
● Explore a comprehensive and clear understanding of the relationship between digital technology and teacher agency.
● Summarize factors that have been identified to impact teacher agency for implementing digital education.
The research questions of the review were:
1. What teacher agency has investigated in empirical research of digital education?
2. What factors influence the improvement of teacher agency for digital education?
3. How has the effectiveness of digital technology for teacher agency been measured?
-What is the impact of digital technology on teacher agency?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedAs it found that empirical studies on teacher agency regarding digital education are limited in scope, this review purposefully determined a broad search, there was no restriction on the time and place of publication. Studies conducted in any country and English publications were selected to gain a broad understanding of the topic. Moreover, this review is also conducted for a PhD project focusing on China. Therefore, as a subset of this review, the Chinese literature was searched. The process and methodology adopted in this study adhered to the PRISMA model (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) (Moher et al., 2009), and specifically focused on systematic review. The process was guided by Kitchenham (2004). Keywords and themes were concluded from relevant literature, including "teacher agency", "digital education", and "technology-integrated education". Then, based on these choosing keywords, search terms were further selected from three thesaurus: the UNBIS (United Nations Bibliographic Information System) Thesaurus; the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) Thesaurus; and the ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) Thesaurus. The concept of "teacher agency" were included by referring to the search strings "agency", "agent*", and "Teacher Decision-Making". The "digital education" was addressed by searching for "Digital classroom", “ICT (Information and communication technology) for education”, "Educational technology", etc.
In addition, these terms were combined with operators such as AND and OR to refine the search with more relevant results. The search strategies were adapted from search instructions of selected databases: ERIC, Web of Science, and CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure). A set of inclusion and exclusion criteria was utilised to screen for eligible studies to answer the review questions (Newman & Gough, 2020). In order to make the search more precise, filters were used to optimise search results further.
Data about participants, definitions, outcomes, and quality of the studies were extracted from all the included papers using a standard template. The collected data were analysed by a thematic approach (Braun & Clarke, 2012). The process of data analysis is both inductive and deductive. It is inductive in that the emerging themes are selected from the analysis of the collected papers. A checklist was used for the assessment of the quality of selected studies.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsAs yet, there has been no systematic review of teacher agency regarding the digital transformation of education, the expected outcome is to explore a comprehensive and clear understanding of the relationship between digital technology and teacher agency. It is also expected to develop a conceptual framework to explain this relationship.
ReferencesEmirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). What is agency? American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962–1023.
Eteläpelto, A., Vähäsantanen, K., Hökkä, P., & Paloniemi, S. (2013). What is agency? Conceptualizing professional agency at work. Educational Research Review, 10, 45–65.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Fans, bloggers, and gamers: Exploring participatory culture. nyu Press.
Kitchenham, B. (2004). Procedures for performing systematic reviews. Keele, UK, Keele University, 33(2004), 1–26.
Moher, D., Liberati, A., Tetzlaff, J., Altman, D. G., & PRISMA Group*, the. (2009). Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: The PRISMA statement. Annals of Internal Medicine, 151(4), 264–269.
Newman, M., & Gough, D. (2020). Systematic Reviews in Educational Research: Methodology, Perspectives and Application. In O. Zawacki-Richter, M. Kerres, S. Bedenlier, M. Bond, & K. Buntins (Eds.), Systematic Reviews in Educational Research: Methodology, Perspectives and Application (pp. 3–22). Springer Fachmedien. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-27602-7_1
Severance, S., Penuel, W. R., Sumner, T., & Leary, H. (2016). Organizing for teacher agency in curricular co-design. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 25(4), 531–564.
Squire, K., & Jenkins, H. (2003). Harnessing the power of games in education. Insight, 3(1), 5–33.
Van der Heijden, H., Geldens, J. J., Beijaard, D., & Popeijus, H. L. (2015). Characteristics of teachers as change agents. Teachers and Teaching, 21(6), 681–699.
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