Abstract
Relational agency is pivotal for understanding how language teachers seek and utilize relational resources in different contexts and grow to be agents of change amid various educational challenges. This study explored how three university teachers of Chinese as a second language (CSL) enacted their relational agency to enhance their research capacity and sustain their professional development. Data on their personal network development was collected through concentric circle interviews, life-history interviews and written reflections over three months. Thematic analysis was adopted for iterative coding and interpretation of the data. The findings revealed that teachers’ personal networks provided them with value guidance, emotional support and academic support, which exerted differential levels of impact on them to make agentic choices and actions. The study suggests that personal network analysis may serve as a suitable theoretical lens to achieve a multi-layered understanding of relational agency. The study also calls for more efforts to create learning opportunities and spaces in the relational context for teachers to build their career as agentic academics in language teacher education and development programs.
Highlights
The notion of teacher agency as teachers’ “socioculturally mediated capacity to act” (Ahearn, 2001, p. 112) has provided a critical lens for researchers to explore and understand how university teachers invested efforts in “(building) their career as academics” (Tao et al, 2020, p.13)
Such a projective dimension of relational agency was displayed in the form of value guidance, which can be regarded as a type of relational resource
The participants strategically appropriated and agentively sought these resources in pursuit of their career aspirations. These relational resources were generated from the personal network they constructed from their concentric circles, for example, their parents, previous teachers and doctoral supervisors as well as the faculty dean in the department
Summary
The notion of teacher agency as teachers’ “socioculturally mediated capacity to act” (Ahearn, 2001, p. 112) has provided a critical lens for researchers to explore and understand how university teachers invested efforts in “(building) their career as academics” (Tao et al, 2020, p.13). The notion of teacher agency as teachers’ “socioculturally mediated capacity to act” Research has examined the critical role that teacher agency has in initiating and sustaining teachers’ professional development. As teacher agency often occurs through interactive positionings and social interactions depending upon others, it is relational in nature and sometimes shared (e.g., Edwards, 2005; Kayi-Aydar, 2015; Priestley et al, 2015; Leijen et al, 2020; Molla and Nolan, 2020), prompting researchers to examine how relational agency works in university teachers’ professional development especially in regard to enhancing their research capacity. Tao et al (2020) investigated eight university LOTE (Languages other than English) teachers’ collective agency and relational knowledge development in a multilingual research center. Tao et al (2020) investigated eight university LOTE (Languages other than English) teachers’ collective agency and relational knowledge development in a multilingual research center. Prain et al (2021) examined
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