Session Information
01 SES 03 B, Issues of Teacher Agency
Paper Session
Contribution
All over the world, teachers have gone through challenging times that threaten their self-fulfilment and their collective valorisation. Educational systems all around are being affected, with the numbers of people applying to teacher education courses decreasing in several countries (Thomas Dotta & Lopes, 2021). This challenge is linked to others, such as the general shortage of teachers, the ageing of the teacher population and retention rates in the profession as a whole (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2018).
In Portugal, for instance, the education system is currently mostly composed of veteran and "superveteran" teachers (Thomas Dotta & Lopes, 2021; Robinson, 2020) that are expected to retire in the next ten years, which may generate a crisis in the system at various levels. In fact, teachers that were on the onset of their careers during 1970s are now retiring. They will take with them 50 years of social and personal history, but also knowledge about pedagogical processes and practices, school relations, teacher education, educational change and the progressive valorisation of teaching and of the teaching profession (Lopes & Thomas Dotta, 2015).
Quality teacher education involves the social valorisation of the profession (Darling-Hammond, 2017). In Portugal, as well as in other countries, the teaching profession has become less attractive, putting the renewal and general quality of the teaching staff at risk (Thomas Dotta & Lopes, 2021). The social image of the profession is a fundamental part of the symbolic dimensions that generate attraction (Darling-Hammond, 2017). In addition, “the work of teachers worldwide has undergone deep change resulting from various parallel reforms, diversified student populations, technology developments and globalization” (Goodson & Ümarik, 2019, p. 589).
Within this context, a genuine reprofessionalization of teaching (Torrance & Forde, 2017) is in order. This reprofessionalization needs to promote "teacher leadership and practitioner enquiry", as "sets of practices based on the exercise of influence and agency on the part of the teacher" (Torrance & Forde 2017, p. 123). In this sense, the need for teachers' reprofessionalization that reinforces teachers' individual and collective agency becomes vital. Although teachers’ work has become increasingly standardised under neo-liberal reforms, the educational policy is increasingly acknowledging the importance of teachers´ agency for the overall quality of education (Goodson & Ümarik, 2019; Biesta, Priestley & Robinson, 2015).
In the professional practice of teachers, teachers’ agency emerges as a differentiating element that is based on a critical and reflective attitude, an investigative stance, an ethos of engagement and collaborative work (Cong-Lem 2021; Fu & Clarke 2017) and whose development can be influenced by different factors, such as personal, social/relational and contextual factors (Cong-Lem 2021). According to Cong-Lem (2021), personal factors include personal beliefs, values, background, identities and emotions, teachers’ knowledge, skills, and prior experiences; social/relational factors include the relationships with colleagues and learners, if teachers enact agency individually or collectively, and local social discourses; and contextual factors include institutional policies, power relations, sociolinguistic backgrounds and cultural values.
In the context of the project "Fifty years of teaching: factors of change and intergenerational dialogue - FYT-ID” (PTDC/CED-EDG/1039/2021)[1], teachers and the Portuguese educational system during the last 50 years are considered an important case study, with international relevance for the elucidation of endogenous and exogenous factors of educational innovation and the recovery of intergenerational dialogue. In this sense, this paper objective is to study the evolution of the educational system in Portugal, from experienced teachers' perspectives, and to identify traits of agency and their facilitators.
[1] Funded by FCT - the Portuguese funding agency that supports science, technology and innovation, in all scientific domains, under responsibility of the Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education.
Method
In Portugal, where the research study is carried out, the generation of teachers that is now retiring has lived through one of the most important periods in the development of the educational system. As such, it is important to capture the accumulated experiential knowledge these teachers detain. In fact, the transformations experienced by teachers in the last 50 years are evident in several published studies (Lopes, Marta, Matiz & Thomas Dotta, 2016; Lopes, & Pereira, 2012), but it is quite rare to collect testimonies of teachers who are retiring. According to Rabin and Smith, “it is common for long-time teachers to retire or leave the profession without sharing their stories” (2012, p. 382). However, life stories related to the time span of a professional life provide information about the personal variables of career development and about the social, political, curricular and pedagogical conditions that generate and are generators of different “periods of practice” (Goodson & Ümarik, 2019, p. 592) throughout that time span. This inside knowledge allows one to identify “how teachers create educational theories within the possibilities and constraints of their circumstances - biographical, historical and political, geographical, cultural and discursive” (Middleton, 1996, p. 543). This paper is related with the funded project FYT-ID and is based on the collection and analysis of life stories of teachers whose professional career began between 1973 and 1983. Its main objective is to study the evolution of the educational system in Portugal, from teachers' perspectives, and to identify traits of agency in experienced teachers and their facilitators factors. To accomplish this, we focused on the life stories of 25 Portuguese teachers from different educational levels, subject areas, and from different regions of origin. The professional way of being that underpins this paper is based on a profile of a teacher who is committed and open to change which is directly related with the idea of teacher agency. In this sense, data were collected through semi-directive interviews aimed at producing narratives of the interviewed teachers’ professional lives. A paradigmatic analysis was conducted, which allowed to produce knowledge about the teaching paths in everyday life and their articulation with personal and contextual aspects.
Expected Outcomes
From the preliminary data analysis, and considering this paper’ objective of identifying traits of agency in experienced teachers and their facilitator factors through life stories, it is possible to determine that teachers enact their professional agency differently across educational settings. Teacher agency can be defined as something that people do (Biesta et al., 2015) and the way teachers develop their agency in their professional practice is related with several factors. In this sense, Cong-Lem (2021) identify three groups of variables influencing teachers’ agency that are useful to frame our results, namely personal, social/relational and contextual factors. The data collected through the 25 life stories show that teachers’ agency is not the result of one factor alone, but rather of an interplay between different conditions. However, the personal characteristics of each teacher and the impact they seem to have on the development of their agency seems to be a common trait to all the participants in this study. Another preliminary conclusion is that teachers exercise their professional agency in a collaborative way (with other colleagues) especially in the first years of their career. Contextual factors – such as bureaucratic work and evaluation policies – seem to have a negative impact on more collaborative ways of working among teachers.
References
Biesta, G., Priestley, M., & Robinson, S. (2015). The role of beliefs in teacher agency. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 21(6), 624–640. Cong-Lem, N. (2021). Teacher agency: A systematic review of the international literature. Issues in Educational Research, 31 (3), 718-738. Darling-Hammond, L. (2017). Teacher education around the world: What can we learn from international practice? European Journal of Teacher Education, 40(3), 291-309. European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice (2018). Teaching Careers in Europe: Access, Progression and Support. Eurydice Report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Fu, G. P., & Clarke, A., (2017). Teacher agency in the Canadian context: linking the how and the what. Journal of Education for Teaching, 43 (5), 581-593. Goodson, I. F., & Ümarik, M. (2019). Changing policy contexts and teachers´ work-life narratives: the case of Estonian vocational teachers. Teachers and Teaching, 25(5), 589-602. Lopes, A., & Pereira, F. (2012). Everyday life and everyday learning: the ways in which pre-service teacher education curriculum can encourage personal dimensions of teacher identity. European Journal of Teacher Education, 35(1), 17-38. Lopes, A., & Thomas Dotta, L. (2015). Para um novo profissionalismo docente: novos mapas e figuras da formação. In A. Lopes, F. Pereira, M. Freitas, & A. Freitas (Eds.), Trabalho docente, subjetividade e formação (pp. 157-166). Porto: Mais Leituras. Lopes, A., Marta, M., Matiz, L., & Thomas Dotta, L. (2016). Formação de professores e primeiros anos de ensino: cruzando níveis de ensino e gerações de professores. In A. Marin & L. M. Giovanni (Eds.), Práticas e saberes docentes: Os anos iniciais em foco (pp. 55-73). Middleton, S. (1996). Towards an oral history of educational ideas in New Zealand as a resource for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 12(5), 543-560. Rabin, C., & Smith, G. (2012). Stories from Five Decades: How One Teacher's Theatricality, Courage, and Creativity Shaped a Life's Work. Action in Teacher Education, 34(4), 381-391. Robinson, J. (2020). Australian super veteran secondary school music teachers: Motivated and valuable. International Journal of Music Education, 38(2), 226–239. Torrance, D., & Forde, C. (2017). Redefining what it means to be a teacher through professional standards: implications for continuing teacher education. European Journal of Teacher Education, 40(1), 110-126. Thomas Dotta, L. T., & Lopes, A. (2021). O ciclo de vida dos professores e a extensão da idade da reforma: Perspetivas de estudo a partir de uma revisão de literatura. Revista Portuguesa De Educação, 34(2), 86–106.
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