Making sense of teacher agency for change with social and epistemic network analysis

Nataša Pantić,Krystallia Kyritsi,Sarah Galey,Dragan Gašević,Srećko Joksimović,Helén Knutes Nyqvist,Lani Florian,Gil Viry

doi:10.1007/s10833-021-09413-7

Nataša Pantić, Krystallia Kyritsi + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-021-09413-7

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Abstract

Reference to teachers as agents of change has become commonplace in the education literature, including change toward more inclusive practice in response to the changing demographic of schooling. Yet, little is known about how teacher agency relates to (1) their understanding of, and commitment to any given change agenda and (2) the institutional and social structures through which they are able to access knowledge and resources within and beyond their schools. This study combined social and epistemic network analysis to examine teachers’ understanding of change and their sense of agency as they use their social networks to mobilise support for furthering change that matters to them. Our study is the first to apply this learning analytic approach in a real setting context. We used theories of teacher agency and inclusive pedagogy to interpret teachers’ social interactions in light of the extent to which they seek to make a difference toward greater inclusion. We collected data with an online log completed by teachers and other staff in two schools in Sweden over 6 months. The findings suggest that teachers understanding of change is embedded in their day-to-day activities such as student support, lesson planning, improvement of programs, and working conditions. Teachers tend to exercise agency toward inclusion when they seek to support student learning and well-being. When teachers act as agents of change, their social networks are bigger, more diverse and more collaborative than in situations in which they act as role implementers. We discuss substantive and methodological implications of these findings.

Highlights

References to teachers as agents of change are commonplace in the education literature (Fullan 1993; Villegas and Lucas 2002)
This study examined the association between teachers’ sense of agency for change and their underlying beliefs through the lens of inclusive pedagogy, an approach to teaching diverse learner groups that attends to individual differences between learners but avoids the marginalization that can occur when some learners are treated differently to others (Florian and Black-Hawkins 2011)
We examined the social networks of 54 teachers and other staff in the two schools to address three research questions: What is the nature of change that teachers try to achieve or orient themselves toward?

Summary

Introduction

References to teachers as agents of change are commonplace in the education literature (Fullan 1993; Villegas and Lucas 2002). Research has provided useful insights on how teachers exercise agency to implement new national standards (Penuel et al 2016). We know that teachers sometimes exercise agency to adapt to or resist change (Buchanan 2015; Datnow et al 2002; Lockton and Fargason 2019), for example when there is a dissonance between their own beliefs and the change they are being asked to make (Buchanan 2015). Whether and how teachers exercise agency depends in part on their commitment to any given change agenda and their understanding of its implications for their practices (Lasky 2005; Sannino 2010; Stillman and Anderson 2015). Studies that account for particular purposes of teachers’ agency and their understandings of change on the one hand, and for their institutional and relational contexts on the other have been scant

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