The teaching profession calls for professionals that are theoretical, pedagogical, and critical as they influence teaching, learning and their partnership in reconstruction of schools. If teachers do not take a stance towards educational theories and pedagogy or are aware of where they stand, their behavior or actions can manifest in an ‘excessive teacher entitlement’ as a response to unreasonable demands or pressure. 

A deficit view of teachers’ common practice is familiar, and teachers are constantly informed that they need to be able to respond to diverse groups of students, to teach certain topics of matters, to teach students with disabilities or students with diverse cultural background, to be able to use technology and so on (Óskarsdóttir, Guðjónsdóttir, & Tidwell, 2019). The message is often that teachers don’t know how. The consequences of the deficit view can lead to a culture where teachers feel that their knowledge is not enough to be able to teach accordingly and they begin to deny methods or to develop their practice (Guðjónsdóttir & Óskarsdóttir, 2020).

The purpose of this research was to address and gain an understanding of the problem of entitled attitude in schools and its socio cultural and historical embeddedness. The aim was to consider how teachers can create a space for reflection to recognize their practice and agency. The main research question was: How can teachers create their agency and form their transition?

Teaching has been characterized as a profession with ambiguity, emotional politics, emphasizing the context and driven by its aims (Biesta, et.al., 2015). The deficit view of teachers means that it is challenging for teachers, classrooms and even schools to develop, there is little room for improvement or chance to move forward. Many teachers find this situation frustrating and for some this is a cause for burn out in the profession. 

Teacher agency can be considered as an developing phenomenon with focus on past, future and present (Biesta,, et.al., 2015). Teacher agency is about the interplay of what teachers bring to their practice and what the practice brings to them. Although agency is involved with the past and the future, it can only ever be acted out in the present. Teachers may come to their situated practice equipped with extensive capacity (e.g. skills and knowledge) and strong educational aspirations, however the innovation may simply prove to be too difficult, or too risky to enact. The projective dimension of teacher agency concerns teachers’ aspirations in respect of their work. Public policy in respect of teacher development tends to focus on raising the capacity of teachers as individual actors instead of focusing on the cultural and structural domains which frame teachers’ practice (Biesta,, et.al., 2015).

The teaching profession requires teachers to be more than receivers or implementers of other professional knowledge. It needs professionals with theoretical, pedagogical, and critical abilities to influence teaching and learning and the growth of schools (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Day, Calderhead, & Denicolo, 1993; Freire, 1998; hooks, 1994). For sustainable reconstruction and continuing learning and development it is critical that the professional dialogue pervades all aspects of initial and continuing teacher education. This dialogue is an essential aspect of reflective practice and the professional capacitation of teachers (Fullan, 1999; Grimmett & Dockendorf, 1999; Slee, Weiner, & Tomlinson, 1998).

By focusing on how entitlement has developed in school communities might help opening a door for an understanding and actions to avoid excessive entitlement behavior. The emphasize is to focus on it as problem to solve, avoid and not to consider it as an individual failure which often has an ineffectual end (Ratnam, 2019).

Methodology Qualitative research methods were chosen for this study because they allowed the teacher participants to explore their experience and give meaning to their situation. The narrative format gave the teachers an opportunity to tell their stories, to dwell in their experience and confront their emotions and assumptions (Clandinin, 2013; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2012). Participants The teachers were selected using purposive sampling (Silverman, 2013) and six experienced teachers participated in the research by telling their stories built on their long practice of teaching. They were informed of the nature and purpose of the research study and gave their written consent prior to participation. Anonymity was closely guarded throughout the research process. Data Generation Data were gathered by inviting the teachers to tell their professional stories and reflect on challenges they had faced as teachers. A set of guiding questions were used to stimulate and guide them in telling their stories. The teachers were asked to elaborate on the challenges and successes they had experienced during their teaching career. Through in-depth discussions they shared their experiences. By gathering their stories and focusing on the meanings that they ascribe to their experiences, their stories became both the method and the phenomena of the study. Issues are examined in depth through exploratory, open-ended oral conversations, and holistic understanding is situated in their lived experience (Merriam, 2009; Wolcott, 2005). Data collection was carried out in the school year 2019–2020. Each interview, which took about ninety minutes, was recorded and transcribed. The stories that emerged from the data were used to explore the demands and pressure the teacher have experienced and how their identities, roles, and pedagogical and theoretical background effected their practice and agency. Data Analysis Analysis was based on exploring teachers’ realities through their emerging stories using narrative analyses methods. The analytical lens was directed towards teachers’ voices and choices as well as the ways the teachers felt constrained by different circumstances (Merriam, 2009; Wolcott, 2005). Each of the teacher’s stories was analyzed by drawing out themes and subthemes which informed the research questions. Subsequently the data were collectively analyzed for shared experiences, repeated themes, or variations.

Conclusions After the direction of the compulsory education was moved from the Ministry of Education to municipalities it became more centralized, and some teachers felt uncomfortable. Jónína explained how teaching decisions moved from teachers to the school office. She claims that authorities decided to begin using the SMT behavioral program. Jónína experienced controlled demands and pressures from the authorities. She didn´t experience behavior problems in her classroom and didn´t understand why she had to use a special program. This put strain on her, made her irritated, confused, stressed experiencing entitlement behavior. Jana had to take up a new reading program. At the last staff meeting in the spring, we learned that we should use PALS in the fall. I had taught reading for 30 years, developing my teaching through the years using various methods and material all according to my students. After Jana and her colleagues participated in PALS workshops, they decided to continue with their team-teaching. However, the team began to break up and in the end the others told me they couldn´t stand the pressure anymore and that they were going to take up PALS. The PALS program didn´t consider team teaching so the practice they had developed the last years was gone, their classroom was rearranged, one group of students with a team of three teachers was gone. In the end, Jana, the most experienced teacher in the group felt burnout. The findings indicate that teachers experience entitlement in many different forms. It is important to study how teachers can become empowered and how they can enhance their professionalism and create a community with a culture of collaboration, collegial relationship, and well-being built on responsive and shared professionalism. The teachers called for an active role in the school reform or teacher transformation (Hodkinson, 2011; Van Manen, 1995).

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