This thesis investigates how teachers navigate Common Core State Standards, high-stakes testing, and teacher evaluation while creating their own curriculum to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. As a former teacher, I conducted a practitioner research case study of four successful colleagues in a bilingual Pre-K-8 school in Washington, DC. When given flexibility in curriculum, teachers integrated knowledge from their relationships with students to foster a caring environment that supports learning and created their own systems of accountability by deciding what data matters. Teachers centered student engagement as what drives their curriculum and used a variety of differentiation methods based on their own “toolbox” of instructional strategies. Findings suggest a flexible curriculum model allows teachers to be curriculum makers who actively go beyond the standards to integrate knowledge from their practice and relationships with students to create curriculum that successfully supports language learners.

This thesis investigates how teachers navigate Common Core State Standards, high-stakes testing, and teacher evaluation while creating their own curriculum to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. As a former teacher, I conducted a practitioner research case study of four successful colleagues in a bilingual Pre-K-8 school in Washington, DC. When given flexibility in curriculum, teachers integrated knowledge from their relationships with students to foster a caring environment that supports learning and created their own systems of accountability by deciding what data matters. Teachers centered student engagement as what drives their curriculum and used a variety of differentiation methods based on their own “toolbox” of instructional strategies. Findings suggest a flexible curriculum model allows teachers to be curriculum makers who actively go beyond the standards to integrate knowledge from their practice and relationships with students to create curriculum that successfully supports language learners.

This thesis deals with the role of teacher agency in the reform of curriculum under Universal Primary Education (UPE) in Uganda. It draws on empirical research conducted in two UPE case study schools in Uganda. The study was conducted in order to highlight the role of teacher agency in teachers’ professional practice and to analyse the ecological factors that contribute in shaping it, as well as its effects. The thesis begins with a description of the UPE curriculum in its global dimensions. It subsequently reviews the theoretical and empirical literature dealing with the role of teacher agency in the reform of curriculum under UPE, under the themes of ‘globalisation’, ‘teacher/biographical barriers to UPE reforms’, ‘contextual challenges of the reforms on teachers’, ‘teachers’ mediation of the reform challenges’ and ‘effects of the teachers’ mediation of reforms’. The study’s theoretical position draws on the critical realist philosophy of Roy Bhaskar and Margaret Archer, which guided the development a two-phased study design comprising of secondary document analysis using retroduction (Elder-Vass 2010; Edwards et al. 2014) in phase one and field work within the framework of Priestley et al.’s (2015b) ecological approach to teacher agency in phase two. The field work involved semi-structured interviews, observation and primary document analysis. The study established that the globalisation of UPE was driven by Education for All (EFA) under a neo-liberal agenda, which involved both structural and cultural reform. The structural reform has impacted UPE’s ecology through the evolution of a new ‘governance’ structure underpinned by partnership, decentralisation and performativity. Furthermore, it has involved access and inputs reform, which has been characterised by universalisation and the adoption of a partnership funding approach. Cultural reform has focused on curriculum and pedagogy. However, at the micro level of school/classroom practice, most of the reforms have resulted in ‘first order’ changes (Cuban 1998; Priestley 2011a), which are currently manifested by only partial success in absorbing the curriculum and pedagogy reforms, coupled with the continued lack of inputs. This is attributed, among others, to the responses of the teachers, or teacher agency. The study analysed the role of teacher agency in the case studies and concluded that it is widely manifested and is primarily driven by the practical-evaluative dimension, followed by the projective and iterational dimensions respectively. Furthermore, it has significant effects, which are both positive and negative. It therefore plays a significant role in the teachers’ professional practice, which needs to be acknowledged in educational planning. Finally, the study offered some recommendations and suggestions for further research.

This thesis is concerned with teacher agency and how this is achieved within the autonomous schooling model of England’s academies programme. The enquiry draws upon the empirical work conducted in a single case study sponsored academy (‘Bucklands Academy’ ) in 2012. The research was conducted in order to investigate whether the autonomy and freedoms afforded to one such school extended to the teachers working in it and how this affected their professional roles as classroom educators. The thesis begins by sharing my research interest, which relates to whether greater levels of school autonomy enhance the pedagogical approaches taken by teachers. This interest then develops towards the notion of teacher agency and asks the fundamental research question: Is this academy a place where teacher agency can flourish? The study sets out the policy context for academies in England, including an analysis of the historical development of state secondary schooling since 1944. It is shown that the continued ‘need’ to develop a new approach to schooling, eventually in the form of academies, started with claims of unfairness, discrimination and waste of talent brought about by the tripartite system of schooling established by the 1944 Education Act. It then analyses later concerns about the alleged failure of the comprehensive system to achieve its aim of raising standards for all children. The political contexts of state schooling are considered, and particular attention is given to the neo-liberal ideology developed after 1979 of ‘rolling back the state’, introducing choice and competition between schools and increasing the role of the private sector in the delivery of public services. However, the scope of the investigation is not restricted to the national policy context; the research interest lies in establishing what the key reforms have meant for teachers in the classroom and how this has affected the agency they achieve. A number of themes emerged in the review of key literature, including school autonomy, teacher professionalism, the policy to practice paradox and discourses around the academies programme. This thesis sets out a clear theoretical position, which draws upon the critical realist social theory developed by Roy Bhaskar and Margaret Archer. This approach offers a centrist alternative to what Pring (2000b) describes as the false dualism of the two epistemological positions of educational research. Critical realism posits that the world is real and that its structures exist beyond our understanding, but that our knowledge of this stratified world is socially constructed. Within the structure-agency debate, the ecological view of agency developed by Priestley et al. (2015) is adopted, which sees it as being context-dependent and something that individuals achieve in concrete settings. The empirical work within this study consisted of semi-structured interviews, observations and documentary analysis. The main findings from the research are that the case-study school had significant autonomy to develop its own policies and approaches to raising standards. However, this autonomy did not extend to any significant extent below the level of the academy sponsors and the principal. The school had developed a highly performative culture where teachers’ work was centrally directed and through which they were held highly accountable for the attainment of their students. It was found that the way in which autonomy was distributed throughout the school affected the agency of key stakeholders. The sponsors achieved high levels of agency, the principal achieved restricted agency and teachers achieved limited agency. It was found that teachers took one of two approaches to a new curricular reform being introduced by the academy sponsors. They either adopted it or used their limited agency to modify it so that it aligned more closely with their own educational philosophies. There was no indication that any teachers rejected the school’s reform, and it is suggested that this may have been the result of them subordinating this key policy to their ultimate concern of working in a school recognised by school inspectors to be highly effective. This thesis concludes that, contrary to the policy rhetoric, teachers working in one sponsored academy may have had less autonomy than those teaching in local authority maintained schools. This in turn affected the agency they achieved, which appears to undermine the original vision and aims of the academies programme. The thesis concludes by offering possible areas for further research which emerged during this study.

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This master thesis aims to shed light on teachers' responses to the regulation that states that a student's test results in a national test must be taken into a “special consideration" in the teacher's grading. Ten teachers took part in the study during the autumn of 2020, all being teachers in social science subjects in the Swedish secondary school (school year 7-9). A method based on semi-structured focus group interviews is used to answer three research questions. The study’s theoretical framework derives from curriculum theory (i.e. teacher agency; selective traditions and theory associated with assessment). A thematic content analysis identifies two categories of factors contributing to the teachers’ perceptions and application of the regulation. The first category consists of factors that relate to the teachers' views on the purpose of the tests, their principles for construction, their content and their level of difficulty. The second category includes factors related to teachers’ professional practice and agency. The results of the study show how teachers’ responses to this relatively new policy (carried out in 2018) is affected by circumstances relating to students’ need for adaptations (e.g. poor language skills). The main conclusion is that teachers respond to this change of policy in different ways. Thus, it could be argued that further and more detailed information is needed in order to successfully implement the changes and reach a consensus among the teachers. Prior to that, a reasonable assumption is that challenges regarding equality and justice in terms of students’ knowledge levels and final grades will remain.

Relations between music education structures and teacher agency are under-researched and under-theorized, and scholars have indicated that the traditions and competitions of school bands in the U. S. may constrain educator agency. The need for research on teacher agency in competitive environments is compounded by policy trends toward administrators' use of festival scores in music educator evaluations. The purpose of this instrumental case study was to investigate band teacher agency in a highly competitive music education environment. I used the chordal triad of agency as the primary theoretical framework. Participants were four mid-career band educators in Texas, and I collected data through interviews, observations, journal entries, website review, and email correspondence. Throughout the data, participants' agency largely reproduced existing structures. Findings coalesced around (a) participants' core values of music, students' development, hard work, and competition, (b) an inductive, cohesive collection of band teaching norms despite participants' employment in schools of varying urbanicity and student demographics, (c) power sources that transmitted values and directed teachers' agency, and (d) a compelling story of one participant's generative agency that contrasted with the rest of the data. I provide directions for further research on music teacher agency and suggest implications for band educators, professional music education organizations, and music teacher educators.

Kunskaper om och perspektiv på skolämnet geografi är viktiga när relationen mellan lärare och ämne sätt i fokus, särskilt om lärares ämnesspecifika förståelse betraktas som bärande för hur geografiämnet blir till i skolan. Syftet med denna studie är att utforska hur geografilärares ämnesspecifika förståelse kommer till uttryck och kan förstås när lärare själva får reflektera över ämnet och undervisningen. Resultaten visar på en bred variation i hur lärare förstår och resonerar om det egna ämnet. Analysen uppvisar skillnader i hur denna förståelse kan tolkas där två av fynden rör hur vardagens geografier inkluderas samt geografiämnets roll som beredskapsämne. Till det förs en diskussion om det ömsesidiga beroendeförhållandet mellan vad lärare upplever som möjligt och tillåtet, den kapacitet de har att agera, samt geografilärarens roll som medskapare av ämnet.

Years of high stakes testing and managerial directives to improve student test scores created a trend of teachers’ declining sense of efficacy and agency. Researchers have yet to examine the perceptions of teachers following requirements to improve student engagement and school climate in an effort to improve academic performance following the authorization of local and national educational accountability reforms. The purpose of this study is to examine how teachers perceive their efficacy and agency in response to the addition of nonacademic measures and the requirement of documented input from teachers and other stakeholders into educational policy planning procedures. Veteran K-12 teachers’ responses to survey and interview questions were coded, analyzed, and organized into themes to generate an educational theory. Grounded Theory Methodologies (GTM), Culturally Responsive Methodologies (CRM) and Critical Pedagogy (CP) informed data collection methods and theoretical foundations for this study. The creation of a safe dialogical space between the practitioner researcher and participants developed a relationship for both to engage as co-researchers. Teachers discovered renewed senses of efficacy and agency while acknowledging their leadership potential in schools and the community. This study and further practitioner research with teachers in schools will inform pre-service education training programs and confirm teachers’ role as critical intellectuals in American society.

Improvisation is a construct that uses a set of minimal heuristic guidelines to create a highly flexible scaffold that fosters extemporaneous communication. Scholars from diverse domains: such as psychology, business, negotiation, and education have suggested its use as a method for preparing professionals to manage complexity and think on their feet. A review of the literature revealed that while there is substantial theoretical scholarship on using improvisation in diverse domains, little research has verified these assertions. This dissertation evaluated whether improvisation, a specific type of dramatic technique, was effective for training pre-service teachers in specific characteristics of teacher-child classroom interaction, communication and affective skills development. It measured the strength and direction of any potential changes such training might effect on pre-service teacher’s self-efficacy for teaching and for implementing the communication skills common to improvisation and teaching while interacting with student in an inclusive classroom setting. A review of the literature on teacher self-efficacy and improvisation clarified and defined key terms, and illustrated relevant studies. This study utilized a mixed-method research design based on instructional design and development research. Matched pairs ttests were used to analyze the self-efficacy and training skills survey data and pre-service teacher reflections and interview transcripts were used to triangulate the qualitative data. Results of the t-tests showed a significant difference in participants’ self-efficacy for teaching measured before and after the improvisation training. A significant difference in means was also measured in participants’ aptitude for improvisation strategies and for self-efficacy for their implementation pre-/post- training. Qualitative results from pre-service teacher class iv artifacts and interviews showed participants reported beneficial personal outcomes as well as confirmed using skills from the training while interacting with students. Many of the qualitative themes parallel individual question items on the teacher self-efficacy TSES scale as well as the improvisation self-efficacy scale CSAI. The self-reported changes in affective behavior such as increased self-confidence and ability to foster positive interaction with students are illustrative of changes in teacher agency. Self-reports of being able to better understand student perspectives demonstrate a change in participant ability to empathize with students. Participants who worked with both typically developing students as well as with students with disabilities reported utilizing improvisation strategies such as Yes, and…, mirroring emotions and body language, vocal prosody and establishing a narrative relationship to put the students at ease, establish a positive learning environment, encourage student contributions and foster teachable moments. The improvisation strategies showed specific benefit for participants working with nonverbal students or who had commutation difficulties, by providing the pre-service teachers with strategies for using body language, emotional mirroring, vocal prosody and acceptance to foster interaction and communication with the student. Results from this investigation appear to substantiate the benefit of using improvisation training as part of a pre-service teacher methods course for preparing teachers for inclusive elementary classrooms. Replication of the study is encouraged with teachers of differing populations to confirm and extend results.