We investigate longitudinally how Norwegian early career teachers (ECTs) perceive their personal development of professional agency in professional communities after completing a piloted five-year research-based master teacher education for primary and secondary school. Agency, recognized as a crucial element in teacher learning and professional development (Pyhältö et al., 2015; Toom et al., 2017; Toom et al., 2021; Priestley et al., 2013), is related to actions that we do or achieve to initiate meaningful education (Priestley et al., 2015, p. 3). Priestley and colleagues elaborate that “teacher agency” is about how people act upon specific contexts or situations and that these actions are influenced “through the interplay of personal capacities and the resources, affordances and constraints of the environment by means of which individuals act” (2015, p. 19). Further, Eteläpelto et al. (2013) and Pyhältö et al. (2015) connect teacher learning in workplace to the development of professional agency. Pyhältö et al. (2015) elaborate how teacher learning, understood as professional agency in professional communities, includes elements such as skills, efficacy beliefs and motivational factors which also involve active strategies for seeking help and improvement of teaching practices.

Regarding the impact of context on ECTs’ agency, Priestley et al. (2015) underscore that performativity involves demands from both the school and ECTs to perform and generate achievements towards a specific outcome. Performativity has a double meaning, as it not only concerns ECTs having to perform but also involves performance pressure. External performativity often weakens teacher agency, with many teachers choosing to ‘go with the flow’ despite their dissatisfaction with it (Priestley et al., 2015, p. 125). Accordingly, Priestley et al. (2015) identify four key elements that ECTs need to balance their agency within their professional practice: their individual practical knowledge (pedagogical knowledge and responsibility), their clients (students and parents), their employer (the organisation) and the state (through steering documents, for example). Given the significance of collaboration in teachers' professional agency development, it is useful to refer to the concept of collective agency. Hökkä et al. (2017, p. 37) regard collective agency as ‘the capacity to reflect social contexts collaboratively, and to contribute to the transformations of culture and structures over time’. As such, collective agency comprises forms of collective action that contribute to the transformation of teachers’ practice of teaching and other professional tasks.

Biesta et al. (2015) call for more research on how contextual factors may promote or hinder the development of professional agency among teachers, while Toom et al. (2017) urge more investigation into the development of professional agency from teacher education into professional work.  

Our main research questions are as follows:

1)      How do ECTs perceive the development of agency in terms of motivation, self – efficacy and strategies for facilitating professional learning from completing teacher education through the first five years in the profession?

2)      What individual, contextual, and systemic factors, as perceived by ECTs, promote or hinder the development of professional agency?

Norwegian context We study ECTs who have completed a pilot five-year master-based teacher education program, emphasising specialisation in two to four subjects in addition to knowledge in teaching, learning and research methods. The ECTs wrote their master’s theses on themes related to either subject specialisation or general education (Antonsen et al., 2023). They collaborated on an action research assignment during their practice period in schools that they later analysed by using theory. Most colleagues these ECTs encounter in the school fulfilled a previous four-year bachelor's education program. Research has revealed how these ECTs handle teaching within their subject specialization (Antonsen et al., 2020) and learn to contribute and collaborate with colleagues during their first year in service (Antonsen et al., 2023). Informants and data This longitudinal study consists of semi structured interviews (Kvale, 2008) with 27 ECTs shortly after completion of teacher education and at intervals of one, three and five years into the profession. The study did not include specific questions directly related to current research questions. However, the ECTs were asked about learning, subject specialisation, professional development, collaboration and their strengths and challenges at work as well as their goals for the future. The number of informants allowed us to capture variations in the school context. The interviews lasted around 30-60 minutes and were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis Reflective thematic analysis was employed to analyse the data, drawing on the six-phase model proposed by Braun and Clarke (2022). Step 1) We read all the interviews openly without coding them. Step 2) We did an open inductive coding of the data. Step 3) We reviewed the open coding to start to identify patterns in the data. Step 4) We then recoded the codes deductively for each interval of data based upon our theoretical framework that is developed from Edwards (2005) and further used and adopted from Liyuan et al. (2022). We used their categories or boxes to sort and organise the data: • Motivation - I want to learn. • Efficacy beliefs: I am able to learn. • I have active strategies for facilitating learning, I can, and I do this to learn. (which subjects) We also recoded the data according to factors that promote or hinder the ECTs’ agency, such as school subjects they were teaching, stress, time challenge, student-related challenges, and support from leadership. Step 5 and 6 (not conducted yet)

All the ECTs expressed that they were motivated and wanted to learn more after completing their education, as well as at the intervals of the first, third, and fifth years in service. They also expressed efficacy beliefs, showing confidence in their ability to learn new things and collaborate with colleagues in their professional learning community (collective agency). There exists a link between the development of agency and teaching subjects within the specialization gained during teacher education, promoting ECTs’ agency longitudinally from the first to the fifth year in their profession. This is because instructing their core subjects from teacher education enhances their experiences, allowing them to develop and share strategies for improved classroom teaching with colleagues. The longer the ECTs work in a school, the more likely that they have opportunities to teach their subjects with specialization. This indicates that these ECTs with formal competence in two to four subjects have ambitions for improving themselves, but mostly in their subjects from their education, or for a few, by adding a new subject through further education. In general, ECTs describe the development of agency as the ability to reflect on both individual and collaborative teaching within the professional community to improve teaching for students. These ECTs are not afraid of learning new things and actively take on roles for change in the organization. Findings also indicate how contextual factors at school hinder agency. For example, teaching in different class levels or subjects than those from their teacher education, negatively impact the agency development of ECTs. Moreover, challenges related to neoliberal demands and work intensification hinder the development of agency and make ECTs reconsider their roles and positions within their schools and as teachers.

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