Teacher Agency

Recent worldwide education policy has reinvented teachers as agents of change and professional development of the school curriculum. Academic literature has analyzed changes in how teacher professionalism is conceived in policy and in practice but Teacher Agency provides a fresh perspective on the issue, drawing upon an ecological theory of agency. Using this model for understanding agency, Mark Priestley, Gert Biesta and Sarah Robinson explore empirical findings from the 'Teacher Agency and Curriculum Change' project, funded by the UK-based Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Drawing together this research with the authors' international experiences and perspectives, Teacher Agency addresses theoretical and practical issues of international significance. The authors illustrate how teacher agency should be understood not only in terms of individual capacity for teachers, but also in respect of the cultures and structures of schooling.

Mark Priestley is Professor of Education in the School of Education at the University of Stirling, UK. He is an elected member of the Council of the British Educational Research Association (BERA), and Co-Convenor of the European Educational Research Association Curriculum Development Network.

Gert Biesta is Professor of Public Education at the Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy at Maynooth University, Ireland; NIVOZ Professor for Education at the University of Humanistic Studies, The Netherlands; and Professorial Fellow for Educational Theory and Pedagogy at the Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh, UK. He is co-editor of the British Educational Research Journal and associate editor of Educational Theory.

Sarah Robinson is Associate Professor at the Centre for Teaching Development and Digital Media in the Faculty of Arts at Aarhus University, Denmark.