Background: Teacher autonomy has long been contested in public discourse and policy. While reforms encourage teachers to innovate through professional judgement and flexible pedagogy, in everyday primary and secondary school practice “autonomy on paper” does not necessarily become autonomous action. Drawing on Chinese school contexts, this study addresses a governance paradox: teachers often have some room for discretion, yet exercising it depends on relational coordination within teams and hierarchical structures. When coordination fails, professional judgement can be reclassified as non-compliance, non-cooperation, or even occupational risk (Maylone et al., 2011).

Theoretical framing: The paper distinguishes two dimensions of autonomy: (1) autonomy as an institutional space of possibility—formal decision rights embedded in policy texts, school rules, and routines; and (2) autonomy as practical action capacity—the ability and willingness to translate judgement into situated action (Lin & Gao, 2023). Given that collaboration is central in autonomy research (Çolak, 2024), the study adopts a relational autonomy perspective, viewing autonomy not as an individual right or trait, but as a professional capability embedded in organisational relationship networks (Nce & Tikkanen, 2025). In highly structured, team-based, performance-oriented environments, the key question shifts from “Do I have decision-making authority?” to “Can my judgement be understood, supported, and recognised by others?” Autonomy thus becomes a form of relational competence requiring interpersonal and social scaffolding to be enacted (Mackenzie, 2021).

 Questions：(RQ1) How do teachers understand the autonomy space afforded by school rules and daily routines? (RQ2) Under what relational and governance conditions are formal autonomy spaces enacted or deliberately suspended? (RQ3) What strategies do teachers develop between professional judgement and collective expectations, and what are their governance implications?

Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 Chinese primary and secondary school teachers, selected via purposive maximum-variation sampling (region, school type, governance model, and experience). To strengthen empirical leverage and reduce generic responses, interviews centred on critical incidents: teachers recounted episodes in which they considered deviating from routine practices (e.g., pacing, test drilling, lesson designs), what they did or avoided doing, and how colleagues and leaders responded. Probing focused on interaction sequences, organisational cues (rules, targets, performance indicators), and perceived risks and safeguards. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and anonymised. Data were analysed through thematic analysis, with inductive coding organised around institutional space, relational constraints, and agentic negotiation. Ethical procedures included informed consent and careful anonymisation to minimise occupational risk.

Findings:  First,teachers experience formal pedagogical choice as fragile and contingent on relational and governance conditions (team climate, consensus, leadership signals, and performance considerations), so the same act can be read as either professional initiative or disruption. Second, practice-based judgements that challenge unified pacing or intensive drilling are easily reframed as organisational deviance (e.g., “non-execution”), indicating weak institutional mechanisms for distinguishing legitimate discretion from problematic deviation and thereby encouraging self-censorship. Third, teachers rely on relational strategies—low-visibility adjustment, alliance building, and results-based legitimation—to sustain limited action space, but these strategies may also routinise a risk-avoidant form of autonomy.

Contribution: The study shows how autonomy is reshaped through governance and relational networks into an action capacity that can be sustained—or compressed—by organisational relations. It argues that when “blending in” becomes an institutionalised expectation, autonomy is evaluated less by professional reasonableness than by collective acceptability. The findings suggest that formal empowerment alone is insufficient; schools need institutionalised mechanisms for deliberation, error tolerance, and managing professional disagreement, so professional judgement is not continually translated into relational risk. Although situated in China, the governance tension is transferable to other contexts where collaboration and performance accountability coexist.

This study adopts a qualitative design to examine how teacher autonomy is produced, constrained, and negotiated in everyday school governance. A relational autonomy perspective informs both data collection and analysis by treating autonomy as embedded in organisational relationships and interactional processes rather than as an isolated individual attribute. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 Chinese primary and secondary school teachers. Participants were selected through purposive maximum-variation sampling to capture heterogeneity in region, school type, governance model, subject area, and teaching experience. This sampling strategy was intended to identify patterns that recur across differing organisational contexts, while retaining sensitivity to contextual variation. To reduce redundancy with the research questions and increase empirical leverage, interviews were organised around critical incidents. Teachers were invited to recount specific episodes in which they considered deviating from routine or mandated practices (e.g., unified pacing, test preparation routines, lesson design conventions). Interviews lasted 30–60 minutes, were audio-recorded with consent, transcribed verbatim, and anonymised. Given the potential occupational sensitivity of discussing workplace relationships, particular care was taken to avoid collecting identifiable details and to support participants’ control over what they wished to disclose. Data were analysed using thematic analysis with iterative cycles of inductive coding and theory-informed interpretation. First-cycle codes captured concrete autonomy episodes, relational reactions, and governance signals. Second-cycle analysis organised codes around three integrating themes: institutional space (formal permissions and routines), relational constraints (coordination demands, interpretive risks, evaluation pressures), and agentic negotiation (strategies for sustaining action space). Throughout, attention was paid to how teachers’ autonomy claims were socially interpreted and institutionally validated or delegitimised.

The study indicates that the key problem of teacher autonomy is not simply whether teachers possess formal discretion, but whether professional judgement can be carried, recognised, and protected within organisational relationship networks. In highly structured, team-based, and performance-oriented governance environments, autonomy becomes a relational achievement rather than an individual possession: discretionary space is enacted only when it is compatible with collective expectations, leadership orientations, and evaluation pressures. Teachers’ accounts show that formal pedagogical choice is often experienced as conditional and fragile. The same instructional adjustment may be celebrated as professional exploration in one relational setting yet reframed as “non-execution” or “damaging collective outcomes” in another. This interpretive instability creates a governance dilemma: schools frequently lack robust mechanisms to distinguish legitimate professional discretion from problematic deviation. As a result, professional judgement is easily translated into relational risk, intensifying self-censorship and strategic compliance. At the same time, structural conditions do not yield uniform outcomes. Some teachers respond through minimal or instrumental participation, while others develop relational strategies—low-visibility innovation, selective adjustment, alliance building, and “proving legitimacy through results”—to sustain limited action space without openly challenging dominant coordination norms. These strategies may enable incremental innovation, but they can also consolidate a risk-avoidant form of autonomy that is dependent on context and personal networks rather than institutional guarantees. Overall, the findings suggest that strengthening teacher autonomy requires more than formal empowerment. Schools need institutionalised infrastructures for deliberation, professional disagreement management, and error tolerance, so that autonomy is evaluated by professional reasoning rather than solely by collective acceptability. While grounded in Chinese schools, the governance tension identified is transferable across contexts where collaboration and performance accountability coexist.

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