Curriculum for Excellence (CfE, 2004), Scotland's most recent curricular reform, adopted in 2010, positions teachers as key stakeholders in the change process where they are not merely regarded as technicians delivering prescribed curricula but rather as designers and co-producers of school-based curriculum. This critical review considers the ways in which teachers engage with and enact this reform using the lens of teacher agency, to provide insight into how teachers relate to policy (Tao & Gao, 2017). Teacher agency has been defined as the ability to act (Bandura, 2001), to critically shape a response to a problem (Biesta & Tedder, 2006), and reflect on the impact of one's actions (Rogers & Wetzel, 2013). This critical review contributes to understanding of the factors that enable or constrain teachers to exercise agency as they enact new policy. Research in teacher agency is important because teachers may use their agency to support new policy, develop a critical stance or oppose educational change altogether (Sannino, 2010). CfE significantly altered the nature and purpose of Physical Education (PE) by relocating PE and dance to the newly created educational domain of 'Health and Wellbeing', but also offering dance as a unique subject within the Expressive Arts domain. The focus on PE is particularly salient, since PE teachers were not only managing the complexities of enacting whole school reform, but at the same time reconstructing the nature of their subject between the two educational domains. Given the complexities of enacting new policy in PE, this critical review examines the tensions, issues and challenges that PE teachers face when exercising agency to enact new curricular policy in their school setting. This critical review draws from three studies presented in six peer-reviewed international publications, analysing 525 Questionnaires and 50 interviews, that trace the policy formation process using Bowe, Ball and Gold's (1992) cycle of policy creation and enactment in practice. The six papers do not follow a linear path but can be read as a set of three interrelated research studies, conducted in 'real time', examining policy processes in practice. The first study investigated the creation of the CfE policy text by interviewing key policy constructors selected by the Scottish Government to create a vision for PE within Health and Wellbeing. The second study surveyed PE teachers in Scottish secondary schools and examined CfE at the implementation stage of the policy process, comparing policy intentions to teachers' translation of the policy text during the early years of policy enactment. The third study analysed PE teachers' perceptions, experiences and provision of dance in the curriculum using a ten-year longitudinal study to explore teacher agency from student through to experienced teacher. The studies identified the practical manifestations of the theoretically complex concept of collective context-bound agency that is exercised through policy enactment in the relational context of schools. The research established that policy enactment and agency were interconnected when actors were able to respond to tasks that involved them in a socially embedded process. Agency was exercised when teachers reflexively deliberated on the meaning of policy for their practice and negotiated the cultural, social and material contextual environment required to support reform. Teacher agency was enhanced by the collective experience in that, as a group, the PE teachers possessed emergent properties not possessed by individuals but by the power of the relationship that bound them together. The findings are relevant and timely in seeking to explore the information that sits beneath the surface of curriculum change by developing an understanding of the ways to support teachers' current and future practice.

Teacher identity (Ti) is an important concept in helping to understand the variety of inter-connected influences that impact on the professional lives of teachers in further education (FE). Ti is under researched within the FE sector and is used in this study to analyse the impact of the marketization of FE (post-incorporation) on the roles of individual teachers and teacher managers. The study takes an interpretive stance using visual metaphors and the narratives of participant teachers, linked to their roles, and teaching journeys, to analyse and evaluate changes to professionalism and individual agency in response to the marketization of the sector. Key literature on Ti in FE, professionalism and teacher agency were used to develop an understanding of the effects of marketization in relation to the main question and market theory provided a lens through which to consider marketization in context. The findings identified the individualised nature of the effects of marketization on the identities of teachers and how they interpreted their roles. These were seen through different levels of teacher agency and changes to professionalism in response to managerialism and the altered culture of the colleges in the study. A summative conceptualisation of Ti in an FE context was developed, which provided an insight into the potential strategies adopted by staff in relation to marketization and the main question set for this study.

Despite the extensive research into teachers’ lives in recent decades, relatively little of it has focused on the experiences of motivated teachers. Past research has tended to focus upon the issue of retention in a profession that is dominated by regulation and performance measures. This thesis offers an original contribution to the field by exploring the experiences of established teachers who consider themselves to be motivated and who successfully navigate the tensions between the current education landscape and their personal values about teaching. The research provides insights into the complex context within which teachers work and the ways in which they manage this complexity. The methodology is grounded in the principles of adaptive theory which enables the analysis of subjective experience alongside analysis of pre-existing theories to reveal links between teachers’ actions and the structures and systems which affect them. As such, the research offers a new lens through which to consider the complex nature of teachers’ professional lives. The research consists of in-depth interviews with six teachers over the course of a year. The research findings reveal how successful teachers are able to adapt behaviours to negotiate tensions and take control of their own practice. The teachers in this study demonstrate curiosity and critical awareness of the issues in education that go beyond their daily practice. They have a deep understanding of their own values and the factors that influence them and are therefore able to position themselves within the profession and the organisation within which they work. This enables them to take positive action rather than merely cope with the challenges they face. The findings have implications for teacher training and development programmes and the ways in which they enable teachers to navigate and shape their own professional lives.

Syftet med denna undersökning är att synliggöra hur rektorer i grundskolan reflekterar och resonerar kring sex- och samlevnad. Dessutom ämnar studien undersöka hur rektorer i grundskolan tolkar och reflekterar kring skrivelser rörande sex- och samlevnad i läroplanen för grundskolan samt för förskoleklassen och fritidshemmet. Vi vill även analysera hur rektorer översätter dessa reflektioner till det praktiska arbetet i sin skolverksamhet. De frågeställningar vi utgått från är “Hur kan rektorers reflektioner kring och tolkningar av sex- och samlevnad tolkas och förstås?”, ”Hur översätter rektorer läroplanens skrivelser utifrån sina egna reflektioner rörande sex och samlevnad i sin roll som pedagogisk ledare?” samt ”Hur blir denna översättning synlig i det praktiska arbetet i skolverksamheten?”. Studien har sin grund i semistrukturerade intervjuer med sex olika rektorer. Intervjuerna har sedan analyserats utifrån översättningsmodellen och teorin om teacher agency. Det slutliga resultatet visar att sex- och samlevnadsundervisningen innehåll, utformning och plats i skolverksamheten dikteras av flertalet olika faktorer. Detta tar sig i uttryck utifrån egna erfarenheter, den sociala, kulturella och materiella kontext som är skolan, yttre faktorer och styrdokument. Alla dessa faktorer samspelar med varandra och skapar en arena för handlande och genom handlandet så ges olika förutsättningar för sex- och samlevnadsundervisningen.

Syftet med studien är att bidra med kunskap om de mekanismer som ligger till grund för förskolepersonalens val och agerande, så kallad teacher agency, i relation till förskolans demokratiuppdrag i samverkan mellan förskola och hem. I studien interagerar ett ekologiskt perspektiv på teacher agency med latent innehållsanalys av fokusgruppsintervjuer. det för att tolka och analysera samtalen utifrån förskolepersonalens utsagor om förskolans demokratiuppdrag i samverkan mellan förskola och hem. I resultatet redogörs för tre olika förhållningssätt i förskolepersonalens utövande av förskolans demokratiuppdrag. De olika förhållningssätt som presenteras i resultatet analyseras och diskuteras mot studiens bakgrundsavsnitt varpå abstraktionsnåvån höjs och en tematisernade diskussion presenterar tre aktörskap som utgör olika villkor för teacher agency. genom att förstå och synliggöra hur olika förhållningssätt kan möjliggöra eller begränsa teacher agency, kan förskolepersonalen utveckla en medvetenhet för ökad förändringskapacitet och skapa nya villkor att utöva teacher agency. / The aim of this study is to investigate the democratic mission in preeschool education in relation to preeschool-home collaboration. In purpose to discuss the enabling and constraining conditions of teacher agency in relation to the subject. In the study theory of teacher agency interacts with latent content analysis to extract the content in the speech of preeschoolteachers and daycarrers in focusgroup-interviews. The result presents three different approaches in preeschoolteachers and daycarrers stories of practicing the democratic mission, wich effects preeschool-home callaboration. Observing in what way different approaches enable or constrain conditions of teacher agency, may develope awereness and reflektion of actions in different situations to increase achievement of teacher agency.

Despite long-standing debates about the nature of professions and professionalism related to teaching, little consensus has been reached due in large part to an ever-changing political climate and a number of competing ideologies and interests (Bair, 2014; Hargreaves & Goodson, 1996). This lack of consensus fosters variable expectations of teachers, creating opportunities for the generation and implementation of initiatives that ultimately control and undermine teachers’ work (Ingersoll, 2003). While the quality of our nation’s education system depends on teachers' capacity to have professional input regarding their work, concepts of teacher agency and professionalism remain ill-defined, and few studies explore teachers’ experiences in spaces where they are asked for such input. This constructivist study examined teacher agency and professionalism, given the ideal of democracy and the reality of neoliberalism. Utilizing agency theory and participatory democratic theory, this study sought to explore teachers’ perceptions of their professionalism and agency by co-constructing knowledge with 18 members of the Richmond Mayoral Teacher Advisory Council (MTAC). This study took place over seven months and included seven focus group interview sessions, two MTAC meeting debrief sessions, and multiple writing prompts focused on teachers’ narratives of their professional experiences. The study revealed several themes related to teachers’ professionalism, particularly teachers’ focus on student-centered, morally-grounded views of their work. This study’s iterative inquiry process culminated in the development of a Moral Professional Agency framework that may serve useful in future constructivist work with teachers regarding their professional work.

Public and scholarly debates on what it means to be a successful teacher are characterized by increasingly pronounced differences in how various political, legislative, and professional groups define successful teaching. In response to pressures posed by these polarized discourses, critical pedagogic research on education contrasts contested views on the nature of knowledge and critiques the standardization of knowledge in schools. There is a general consensus in the research that it is necessary for teachers to develop an understanding of a rapidly changing world, and an understanding of students coming from various social milieus who are often unwilling to accept a uniform set of knowledge and values it promotes. Thus, the body of knowledge and the values which are supposed to be passed on to new generations of students continue to be points of contention in education. It is necessary for teachers to be aware of why certain sets of knowledge, skills, and values should be promoted in increasingly diverse school settings. In this expanded view of the teachers’ role and of teacher expertise, teacher agency, the nature of knowledge, sociopolitical relations, and power relations need to be considered. In this dissertation I examine the interplay of these factors by examining the extant research and then analyzing the perceptions of a group of teacher participants in a qualitative study. I have synthesized the findings to develop a new concept of teacher agency expertise in a critical pedagogic sense. I clarify the relationship between teacher expertise and teacher agency. The concept of teacher expertise requires that teacher agency be conceived of in terms of its collective expressions and its larger influence, as well as the aim of effective teaching for equity and social justice.

Magister Educationis - Med / Since the dawn of democracy, the South African government has set up different measures to improve education in schools, inter alia the provision of funding, resources, feeding schemes and the introduction and amendment to different curricula. The current education policy, the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS), was adopted in 2012 following three other consecutive education policies that had not delivered to the desired standard in terms of educational outcome. This study focuses on the perceptions of teachers in terms of their freedom to pursue the aims of CAPS in low-income school communities. The teachers' perceptions and freedoms were explored and analyzed using the Capabilities Approach (CA) authored by Amartya Sen which forefronts the capabilities (the ability to achieve) and the functionings (real achievements). Teachers' perceptions were therefore explored and analyzed in terms of freedoms and unfreedoms they enjoy and face in the process of transferring the knowledge to learners. The thesis studied and analyzed the capabilities and perceptions of teachers in terms of their real freedoms through the deconstruction of their experiences.

This thesis critically examines constructions of cultural diversity and intercultural education in Greek-Cypriot primary schools. Since 2008 the Cyprus Ministry of Education has officially adopted the Europeanized rhetoric of intercultural education and inclusion as the most effective approach to the increasing diversity in schools. As part of the wider reform of the education system aiming at the creation of the ‘democratic’ and ‘humane’ school, a new curriculum was introduced in 2010 to promote equality of opportunity for access, participation and attainment. Drawing on relevant key theoretical ideas, this study has developed a theoretical framework of intercultural education to assist the critical examination of constructions of intercultural education in Greek-Cypriot primary schools. For the purposes of this study, three-month long critical ethnographic case studies of intercultural education were constructed in three urban Greek-Cypriot primary schools with different profiles. Rich data was generated through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with head teachers, teachers and teachers of Greek as an additional language. The study also engaged in non-participant lesson and school observations, developed participatory methods with children, and undertook semi-participant observations of pupils’ play during breaks and of extra-curricular activities. Relevant policy and school documents were also analysed. The findings of this study reveal that constructions of cultural diversity and intercultural education in Greek-Cypriot primary schools are characterized by contradictions, inconsistencies and a lack of theoretical understanding of issues related to cultural diversity and intercultural education. Different cultures and identities were constructed in different, though mainly, essentialist ways by teachers from the dominant cultural group. This study argues that the concept of cultural diversity needs to be treated with some caution, as it tends to homogenise non-dominant cultures and thus, it may obscure the complexities involved in engagement with and recognition of different Others. Key differences between the two mainstream schools and the ZEP (Zone of Educational Priority) school which participated in this study in terms of the degree of autonomy and financial support officially granted by the Ministry; the school leadership style and the head teacher’s construction of diversity and intercultural education; the composition of the pupil population; and the dominant institutional discourses about diversity affected the extent to which and the ways in which teachers exercised their agency in relation to intercultural education. Moreover, the teachers’ positioning in the Greek Cypriot society and the extent to which they had developed a political literacy and critical consciousness through their life and professional histories also affected their constructions of cultural diversity and intercultural education and the extent to which they perceived and exercised their role as agents of change. In turn, the ways in which cultural diversity and intercultural education were constructed in each class influenced the extent to which and the ways in which bilingual and/or bicultural children used their agency and negotiated their cultural positionings. The findings carry implications for policy and practice. The study highlights the need for a coherent theoretical framework of intercultural education to enable schools and teachers to develop a theoretically-grounded understanding of intercultural education and move beyond fragmented practices that leave structural inequalities and barriers to educational achievement unacknowledged and unaddressed.

Abstract The general aim of this research was to explicate what kind of a process ‘doing things differently’ in the context of literacy practices is from the teacher agency perspective. The research was based on development work on literacy practices, which I as a teacher-researcher conducted in a Finnish first grade classroom during one school year. I based the new literacy practices on the concepts of a broad conception of text and the communicative view of language presented in the Finnish national core curriculum 2004. The new practices mirrored the affordances of ‘new literacies’ involving use of technology, diversified texts and collaborative learning. They deviated from the traditional Finnish ones, which are based on the use of text- and workbooks and teacher-directed interaction, and therefore their implementation brought forth a change process. The meaning was not only to challenge the prevailing practices content and mode wise, but also to transform the social structures of the classroom community towards being more pupil-centred. It became evident that my agency involved the change in organising the possibilities for new kinds ways of working. The change also influenced my subjective level of being a teacher. The act of ‘doing things differently’ became a reflective learning process for me involving a struggle against traditional practices. The social structures changed in connection with literacy practices towards increased pupil participation and emancipation. The teacher agency transformed from instructor to guide, offering the pupils opportunities for learning. The findings showed that the change in the literacy practices was based on the choices I as a teacher made during the process, creating in this way a style for it. The style was characterized by relativity and ‘becoming’, as well as by the need for both professional and personal support. The experiences of these kinds of change processes are currently topical in Finland. This is especially because there is a new curriculum coming out in 2016 and the principles and contents in it will emphasize the use of new technologies and their benefits towards practices and collaborative learning in even more extensive scale than the current one. Educators need knowledge of what kind of process the implementation of these principles and contents will be and what kinds of professional learning it involves. / Tiivistelmä Tämän väitöstutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli tarkentaa tekstitaitojen käytänteiden muutosprosessi opettajan toimijuuden näkökulmasta. Tutkimus perustuu kehittämistyölle, jonka minä opettaja-tutkijan roolissa toteutin suomalaisella ensiluokalla lukuvuoden ajan. Tekstitaitojen käytänteiden kehittämistyö perustui Suomen perusopetuksen opetussuunnitelman perusteiden 2004 laajaan tekstikäsitykseen ja yhteisölliseen näkemykseen kielestä. Tältä perustalta luodut käytänteet sisälsivät monilukutaidollisia ulottuvuuksia rakentuessaan erilaisten tekstien ympärille ja sisältäessään teknologian käyttöä ja yhteistoiminnallisia työskentelytapoja. Nämä käytänteet poikkesivat perinteisistä suomalaisista käytännöistä, jotka enimmäkseen perustuvat opettajajohtoiseen työ- ja oppikirjojen käyttöön. Tarkoituksena oli siis sekä muuttaa tekstitaitojen käytänteiden sisältöä ja välineitä, että myös vaikuttaa luokkahuoneyhteisön sosiaalisiin rakenteisiin oppilaskeskeisyyttä lisäämällä. Tutkimusprosessin aikana kävi selväksi, että toimijuuteni oli tärkeä osa työskentelytapojen mahdollisuuksien järjestelyissä, mutta muutos vaikutti myös subjektiiviseen käsitykseeni itsestäni opettajana. Muutostyöstä tuli minulle reflektiivinen oppimisprosessi, jossa pyrin pois perinteisistä käytännöistä. Prosessin aikana luokkayhteisön sosiaaliset rakenteet muuttuivat tekstitaitojen käytänteiden mukana kohti kasvavaa oppilaiden osallisuutta ja emansipatorista vuorovaikutusta. Opettajan toimijuus muuttui ohjaavaksi, tarjoten oppilaille mahdollisuuksia oppimiseensa. Tulokset antavat ymmärtää, että muutos muotoutui prosessin aikana tekemistäni valinnoista, jotka loivat muutokselle omaleimaisen toteutuksen. Tätä omaleimaista toteutusta karakterisoi monitasoisesti suhteellisuus ja ’joksikin tulemisen’ käsite sekä opettajan ammatillisen ja henkilökohtaisen tuen tarve muutostyössä. Kokemukset tekstitaitojen käytänteiden muutosprosessista ovat tällä hetkellä erittäin ajankohtaisia Suomessa, sillä uusi opetussuunnitelma tullessaan voimaan 2016 painottaa monilukutaitoa. Kasvatuksen ja koulutuksen ammattilaiset tarvitsevat tietoa siitä, millainen prosessi uusien käytänteiden toteuttaminen on luokkahuoneyhteisön tasolla ja millaista ammatillista oppimista prosessi opettajalta vaatii.