The contemporary "Age of Uncertainty” requires the ability to respond effectively to global challenges, such as climate change, economic instability and inequality, human rights violations, military-political conflicts, and pandemics, and others. In this context, the task of the formation of agency, that is, the ability to act and transform the surrounding reality, to make decisions and take initiative in various contexts and spheres of public and personal life without external control or support is becoming increasingly important for education systems (Manyukhina, 2022; Sorokin & Froumin, 2022).
Agency is defined as the ability of an individual to act, exercising control over his/her life, the ability to set and achieve goals (Cavazzoni et al., 2021), proactively influence the environment, including the transformation of existing and the creation of new forms of interaction in various spheres of public life (Udehn, 2002). Agency is expressed in the ability to be an active participant, guiding and shaping one's life path (Schoon & Cook, 2021). It also implies the optimization of resources, overcoming or transforming constraints on the way to achieve self-set goals (Zimmerman & Ceary, 2006), both in individual subjective reality and in objective social reality. The variety of approaches to the definition of agency and the difficulties in unifying the methodology for measuring this construct are primarily due to its multidimensional (umbrella) character (Schoon & Cook, 2021; Schoon & Неckhausen, 2019).
Education is extremely important from the point of view of the agency formation. The construct of agency is based on two components (Cavazzoni et al., 2021; Abebe, 2019; Veronese et al., 2019): personal characteristics ("self-efficacy", "personal autonomy", "optimism”, “self-esteem”, "internal locus of control"), and structural capabilities (socio-economic conditions, the territory of residence, the role of family, and the formal requirements of the institutions). This idea helps to understand the role of education in the formation of appropriate qualities and skills of schoolchildren in the learning process (Manyukhina, 2022). It is noted that institutional and pedagogical practices can contribute either to the expansion or limitation of the manifestation of agency (Ruscoe et al., 2018; Sirkko et al., 2019; Kirby, 2019).
At the same time, educational practices that are implemented outside strictly formal school education, including the participation of schoolchildren in extracurricular activities and private lessons, can acquire special importance from the point of view of the formation of proactive behavior. A number of studies have shown that extracurricular activities make a significant contribution to the formation of such qualities as perseverance, independence, self-confidence, creativity, and social activity (Baker, 2008; Durlak, Weissberg, Pachan, 2010; Baharom et al., 2017). The students who study privately tend to practice longer, "smarter," and more efficiently as they establish practice objectives, maximize time and concentration through shorter but generally more productive practice segments (Hamann, Frost, 2000).
At present, literature lacks tools for assessing agency of children and adolescents comprehensively, in various spheres of manifestation (Sorokin, Froumin, 2022; Cavazzoni, 2021). Also, there are no general models allowing to correlate different types and levels of children’s agency with individual and structural factors, including educational practices.
The purpose of this study was to search for predictors of schoolchildren’s agency at the individual and school levels.
Research questions:
- What are the individual characteristics of students (gender, age, socioeconomic status, parental level of education, participation in private lessons, and extracurricular activities) are significant predictors of the agency level?
- What significant predictors of agency level can be found at the school level (number of students, number of young teachers, proportion of students with low/high socioeconomic status, and others)?
- How does the significance of these predictors change when they interact with each other?