The role of teachers as active curriculum-makers, who make curriculum by considering the contextual conditions and the needs of diverse learners, has particular importance for today's educational environments with a growing number of students from different socio-cultural backgrounds. Subsequently, recent educational reform movements in many places strongly emphasise the role of teachers in enacting curriculum policies, with an increased rhetoric of autonomy and flexibility that is linked to teacher agency (see, for example, Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence and New Zealand Curriculum Framework; Priestley & Biesta, 2013). Offering more flexibility and space for teachers have been addressed along with equity goals (Pantic, 2015; Sinnema & Aitken, 2013). Moreover, the teacher role as the agent of change has been widely discussed in relation to teaching diverse learners by referring to an effective teacher who can initiate and also resist the change to create equitable practices (e.g. Irvine, 1990; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Darling-Hammond, French & Garcia-Lopez 2002; Pantic, 2015).

However, Turkey followed somewhat different trends than international reforms by standardization of educational processes and offering narrow flexibility and autonomy for teachers, while still focusing on reducing the inequalities in the education system through policy papers (e.g. Education vision 2023; MoNE, 2018). Hence, it is crucial to examine teachers’ role in curriculum making for promoting social justice and equity in the context of Turkey.

Teacher agency has been addressed by referring capacity of the teacher and individual ability to act like a change-maker and critical decision-maker in the literature on educational change (e.g. Fullan, 1993; Zeichner, 2009; Villegas & Lucas, 2002). However, Priestley, Biesta, and Robinson (2013) have challenged this approach with their model for understanding teacher agency from an ecological perspective which is outlined by Emirbayer’s and Mische (1998), that suggests social, cultural, and structural conditions also play an important role in achieving agency for teachers in their work. The model of the ecological approach to teacher agency is a theoretical basis for this study that aims to explore teacher agency in curriculum making in respect of social justice and equity. Thus, this study aims to explore how do teachers' individual and ecological conditions enable and constrain mathematics teachers’ achievement of agency, in respect of curriculum making through social justice and equity in Turkey.

The following questions are addressed in this study:

1. How do mathematics teachers perceive their agency in relation to teaching diverse learners?
2. How do teachers perceive the mathematics curriculum and their role in curriculum making in relation to social justice and equity?
3. What are individual, cultural, social, and structural factors that influence teacher agency in mathematics curriculum making in relation to social justice and equity?

A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design consisting of two distinct phases will be used in this study (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2017). In the first phase, quantitative data will be collected through Teacher Agency Scale which is developed by Gülmez (2019) together with the Demographic Information Form from mathematics teachers in the schools selected through cluster random sampling. The results of the survey will be analysed through descriptive statistics to identify participants and qualitative questions for the qualitative phase. In this study, the priority (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2017) will be given to the qualitative approach, since it focused on in-depth explanations of the quantitative results and involved extensive data collection from multiple sources. In the second phase of the study, teachers will be selected for the qualitative case study through a matrix for selection criteria and teachers’ commitment to participate in interviews and the observation process. A multiple case study approach (Yin, 2014) will be used to explain how individual, cultural, and structural factors influence teacher agency in mathematics curriculum making concerning social justice and equity, in the qualitative phase. Thus, the quantitative data and results will provide a general picture of teacher agency, while the qualitative data and its analysis will refine and explain those statistical results by exploring the teachers’ views regarding curriculum making and mathematics concerning equity and social justice, and ecological factors that constrain and enable their agency in more depth. In that sense, qualitative data will be conducted through face to face/ online semi-structured interviews, observations of their interactions with others (students and colleagues) and document analysis of the mathematics curriculum. The model of an ecological approach to teacher agency (EATA) developed by Priestley et al. (2013) will be used as an analytical lens for data analysis. Following the analysis of qualitative data, the qualitative and quantitative results will be integrated by using the key themes and example quotations, and statistical data by illustrating connections across key findings.

The data collection process for this research is planned to be started in the academic year of 2023-2024. However, the main themes for expected results of the study are presented as follows: • Insights into mathematics teachers’ perceptions of their agency in Turkey • Insights into teachers’ perceptions of mathematics curriculum and their role in curriculum mediation through social justice and equity • Insights into teachers’ perceptions of social justice and equity and their relationship with mathematics education • Insights into the ecological factors that influence teacher agency in mathematics curriculum making in relation to social justice and equity.

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