Teacher agency, a key focus in recent educational research, receives considerable attention due to its vital role in teachers' professional development. This attention stems from the understanding that agency is intricately linked to various factors, including past professional milestones, personal beliefs, and contextual influences (Priestley et al., 2015; Tinn & Ümarik, 2021). Recognizing that agency is not inherent in every action, this research emphasizes the need to explore and understand the diverse expressions of teacher agency within the work process. The goal is to identify and recognize teacher agency as a habitual or intentional action reflecting genuine professional agency.

Teacher agency encompasses influential factors such as the general context, including social and educational changes, identity, and professional knowledge leading to different discourses. Specific impacts of various aspects can be investigated using Piestley and Robinson's three-dimensional model, connecting iterational, projective, and practical-evaluative dimensions (Piestley & Robinson, 2015). There is a growing body of research on what influences the emergence and development of agency and how to sustain and support its growth (Eteläpelto & Vähäsantanen, 2008). However, with the diversity of influencing factors, it can be assumed that agency may not always come into action in the same manner. This paper focuses on the different expression possibilities of agency – agency in action – and the factors that impact these expressions.

While numerous articles discuss what influences the emergence and development of agency and how to support it, this paper examines how agency is specifically expressed, in what ways, and how uniform its realization is in a teacher's lived educational actuality.

We observe that educational changes are a significant influencer of agency (Tinn & Ümarik, 2021). This empirical study aims to understand how different conditional factors are related to enabling or disabling agency, moving on to examine the specific forms that agency in action takes.

Selected teachers, whose careers began in the 60s-70s, yielded limited insights into the Soviet era during life history interviews. The scarcity of material is evident in the resulting typology and narrative portrayals. Rich data emerged primarily in the late 80s, amidst significant societal upheaval leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Estonia's independence restoration in 1991. These transformative times profoundly impacted society, with the education sector at the forefront of conscious change. The analysis reflects these historical dynamics, and life history interviews from the past 30 years provide a robust foundation for the study.

At the core of teacher agency is the ability to imagine alternatives, capturing the possibility of different alternative ways of acting. This is precisely why agency manifests itself in different ways, as different paths are inherent. How agency in action can take different forms and find alternative paths, while essentially sprouting from the same basis, is mapped in detail in the typology and described in four portrayals to unlock these types for a reader.

The typology is based on the theory-based analysis of the ecological model of agency (Priestley et al., 2015), which has three dimensions: iterational, projective, and practical-evaluative. In the analysis process, we also considered an addition suggested by Leijen et al. (2019) to add a feature of personal long-term purpose-making to the model.

The main themes from the analysis were accountability, efficiency, knowledge base, professional identity, perceived autonomy, short-term goals, long-term purposes, and school culture. All these themes were more or less influenced by another factor that surfaced in the analysis process – teacher nostalgia. Likewise, it was found that agency can also manifest as a toxic agency – a phenomenon whose connections with certain types of nostalgia were particularly strong.

Thirteen social science teachers from Estonian general education schools participated in life history interviews, with at least two interviews conducted with ten of them. The sample was intentionally diverse, encompassing teachers from different age groups, genders, and various schools and regions across Estonia. The interviews ranged in duration from 74 minutes to 2.5 hours. Narrative life history interviews (Goodson, 2014) were employed to gain a profound understanding of individuals' lives—both personal and professional—as well as the intersections between the two, making this approach well-suited for the ecological model of agency. The interviews were transcribed and anonymized, and the portrayal method (Goodson, 2013, p. 41; Sadam, Jõgi, Goodson, 2019) was utilized for analysis. This method involves the researcher interpreting life narratives in a socio-historical context. Creating Narrative Portrayals: The initial stage involved conducting interviews with open-ended questions and essential follow-up inquiries to gather comprehensive and in-depth data. (Goodson and Sikes, 2001, pp. 57-74; Kalekin-Fishman, 2017; Sadam et al., 2019; Tripp, 2012, pp. 97-98) Transcribing interviews was not just a preparatory step but an integral part of the analysis phase, involving the identification of themes for subsequent interviews. (Gibbs, 2007) The open coding process identified and marked significant themes recurring throughout interviews, guided by the theoretical framework or emerging organically until saturation was achieved. (Goodson, 2013, p. 40) This stage involved contextualizing identified themes within a socio-historical framework and creating narratives to understand broader meanings. (Goodson, 2014, p. 41) Narrative Portrayals and Documentation: Creating narrative portrayals involves generating written representations to deepen understanding of an individual's experience within a specific socio-historical context. These portrayals were presented as a result of the analysis. (Goodson, 2013, p. 41) The rationale for writing narrative portrayals in the analysis results is that interviewees might not always be as aware of the socio-cultural context as the researcher. The researcher can always inquire further about this context (Antikainen et al., 2009, 240; Goodson and Gill, 2011, 40). Each interview was analyzed individually, while simultaneously creating both individual and collective concept maps highlighting key themes. These themes formed the basis for constructing a typology of teacher agency. The portrayals were sent to interviewees for review and clarification.

The study affirms the pivotal role of context, emphasizing that teacher agency is deeply embedded in the surrounding social, educational, and historical context. The emergence and expression of agency are intricately tied to external factors such as social and educational changes, shaping the teacher's ability to navigate professional challenges. Agency can manifest through actions, refraining from action, or a combination of both. By delving into the empirical study, the research sheds light on the conditional factors that either enable or disable teacher agency. This understanding provides a nuanced perspective on the intricate interplay between contextual elements and the realization of agency in action. The temporal dimension, especially the historical moment of the late 80s, emerges as a critical factor in understanding teacher agency. Life history interviews provided rich and dense descriptions, serving as a foundational source for analysis. It highlights the importance of historical context in unraveling the complexities of teacher agency. The application of the ecological model of agency, enriched by the addition of personal long-term purpose-making, proves instrumental in analyzing and categorizing teacher agency. The typology developed based on this model delineates dimensions such as iterational, projective, and practical-evaluative, offering a comprehensive framework for understanding diverse expressions of agency. Teacher nostalgia emerges as a significant factor influencing various aspects of teacher agency. It impacts themes such as accountability, efficiency, knowledge base, professional identity, perceived autonomy, short-term goals, long-term purposes, and school culture. Furthermore, it was found that agency can also manifest as a toxic agency—a phenomenon strongly associated with certain types of nostalgia. In essence, this study contributes to the ongoing discourse on teacher agency by offering a nuanced understanding of its manifestations, contextual influences, and the complex interplay of factors shaping teachers' professional development.

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