Teaching is a profession fundamental to a democratic society. In our society, it is essential that teachers develop a strong professional identity and a robust sense of agency to uphold and advance equitable and inclusive educational practice. Yet, across the world, clear and compelling reasons for entering or remaining in the teaching profession are rare, and many teachers may struggle to articulate their own purpose. This lack of a shared sense of purpose can result in teaching practices and reform initiatives that are disconnected from both personal commitment and broader social significance. The growing global challenges of teacher shortages and burnout may, at least in part, reflect this erosion of meaning and purpose within the profession.

To overcome this issue, it would be undeniably essential to improve the socio-economic status of teachers, but this alone would be insufficient. A vital avenue for overcoming the lack of a shared sense of purpose among teachers must lie in collaborative and existential dialogues among teachers aimed at realizing equitable and inclusive practices within the school community (Impedovo, Ferriera-Meyers, & Inoue, 2023). Lesson study, for example, is widely recognized for providing such opportunities for reflective dialogue (Ronda & Danipog, 2022; Stigler & Hiebert, 1999), and numerous efforts have sought to implement and sustain it across the world.

However, if lesson study is not anchored in a teacher's personal sense of significance, it can easily devolve into a routine task—a "fossilized" practice lacking both purpose and sustainability. Indeed, in Japan, where lesson study is deeply institutionalized, the stagnation and fossilization of the practice are reported as persistent challenges (Chichibu, 2005). There, teachers could be easily consumed by non-instructional tasks to meet the accountability demands of parents, the local community, and the government.

This study assumes that teacher agency holds the key to overcoming this problem (OECD, 2025). It investigates the nature of teacher agency among expert elementary school teachers in Japan who have taught successfully for many years, aiming to develop a deep understanding of how such agency is activated and sustained.

1)   What characterizes the teacher agency of expert teachers, and how do they embody their teacher agency in their teaching?

2) How do they develop and sustain their teacher agency? What enables them to engage in recursive cycles of practice improvement while navigating the inherent complexities of educational practice to actualize their purposes as teachers?

3) What lessons can be learned for structuring teacher education programs—such as lesson study—more purposefully so that teachers develop and maintain a resilient sense of agency?

The study employs action research as an analytical lens, in which the deconstruction of the “I” across iterative cycles of action and reflection constitutes a key dimension of analysis.(Robertson, 2000; Whitehead & McNiff, 2006). This framework allows for an investigation into how teachers can overcome "living contradictions"—the gap between their educational visions and their actual experiences in classrooms and schools (Whitehead, 2012). Using this framework, the study aims to make sense of how teachers’ lessons reflect their professional missions, as well as their long-term developmental histories and the self-transformation journeys grounded in reflective inquiry into their practice.

The ultimate goal of this study is to point toward new directions for empowering teachers and potentially reversing the widespread disempowerment and burnout affecting the profession globally. It aims to suggest ways to address shared educational challenges—such as teacher shortages and the marginalization of the teaching profession—so that truly equitable and inclusive educational practices can be actualized in schools across the world.

This ongoing study employs a case study and cross-case analysis approach (Bartlett, Lesley, & Frances Vavrus, 2018) to examine the development of teacher agency through the teaching practices of expert teachers and how they make sense of their teaching in relation to their life histories. First, 9 expert teachers were identified as teacher leaders by teacher educators and school principals in the greater Tokyo area. These teachers were known not only for their strong subject-matter instruction but also for their ability to foster students’ social-emotional learning. We visited their schools, observed their lessons, and conducted semi-structured interviews centered on the observed lessons—particularly how the teachers made sense of their instructional decision-making and interactions with students in relation to their professional identities, values, and life histories. The semi-structured interview protocol included key questions such as: (1) the kinds of decision-making teachers engaged in to enact the observed lessons; (2) how they made sense of those decisions; and (3) how they developed their expertise and came to teach as they do in relation to their personal histories, among others. These questions were designed to capture the nature of teacher agency as well as how that agency was activated and sustained across teachers’ life histories. Video-recorded lessons and audio-recorded interviews constituted the primary data sources for thematic analysis, and follow-up interviews were conducted with selected teachers when necessary. Interview responses were analyzed in relation to key events and interactions observed in the lessons using iterative cycles of analysis. Emerging themes were cross-referenced and repeatedly checked against the original data to ensure their adequacy and analytic validity. The analysis is currently approaching theoretical saturation in explaining how and why expert teachers enacted and sustained their teacher agency.

Our preliminary analysis identified several themes that illuminate the nature of teacher agency and the processes through which it is activated and sustained. The key findings are summarized below. 1) Teacher agency development is enacted through a long-term career trajectory. Teacher agency does not develop in a social vacuum; rather, it is nurtured through teachers’ existential journeys with others in the profession, as they continuously examine and co-reflect on their pedagogical choices in everyday teaching. 2) Personal history serves as a key determinant of the agency developed by expert teachers. This includes their motivations for entering the profession, what they value and enjoy in their work, and how they have navigated choices and interactions with diverse students over time. Together, these experiences shape their professional identities. 3) Encounters with visionary leaders serve as critical catalysts for the enactment and transformation of teacher agency. Interactions with principals and teacher educators who demonstrate strong commitments to equitable and inclusive practice often play a pivotal role in teachers’ development. Specifically, engaging in reflective dialogues with such leaders during lesson study can significantly influence how teachers position themselves within the profession and their school communities. 4) Teachers’ perceptions of "what works" in the classroom serve as a driving force for transformation. Teacher agency appears to develop in relation to successful experiences of serving diverse students and actualizing inclusive practices. These moments of success reinforce their sense of efficacy and commitment to change. Through these findings, it appears essential to honor teachers’ deep-seated feelings about their profession and their reflective journeys of self-transformation within teacher education. Flexibly nurturing each teacher’s sense of agency, in collaboration with local leadership, seems to help teachers identify as agents of change and sustain their efforts to actualize equitable and inclusive educational practices with a sense of empowerment.

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