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ESRC reference RES-000-22-4208

Project Publications

• Newsletters
• Working Papers
• Published Papers
• Conference Papers
• Teacher agency workshop, 4 May 2012

Recent curriculum policy in Scotland positions teachers as agents of change and as active developers rather than just deliverers of the curriculum. Scotland is not alone in this; in many countries around the world it is acknowledged that teachers play a crucial role in curriculum development and educational improvement more generally. And yet, existing change theory and curriculum policy tend to underplay and misconstrue the ways in which teachers exercise agency in their engagement with policy, and also has limited understandings of the factors that facilitate and promote teacher agency.

The Teacher Agency and Curriculum Change project is undertaking research in schools to explore teacher agency in the context of a major national curriculum reform, Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence.

The project has two key aims:

• to trial a set of methodologies for identifying the factors that impact upon teacher agency
• to develop an understanding of key factors that impact upon such agency in contexts of educational change.

The research will be guided by the social theory of Margaret Archer and takes as its starting point an ecological view of agency. The study takes place in three schools, two secondary and one primary, spanning three phases (summer term 2011, autumn/winter term 2011 and spring term 2012). The research will not only contribute to the development of educational change theory, but will also inform policy and practice, nationally and internationally, in related fields of curriculum development and educational change. The research is ethnographic in nature. Methods include observations, interviews, reflective journals and event mapping. Feedback from participating teachers in each phase of the research will inform the design of each subsequent phase.

The project is funded by the Economic Social and Research Council (RES-000-22-4208) and will run from March 2011 to May 2012. It is led by Dr Mark Priestley (Principal Investigator) and Professor Gert Biesta. Dr Sarah Robinson is the Research Fellow. For further information about the project please contact:

Dr. Mark Priestley

Reader in Education

School of Education

Email m.r.priestley@stir.ac.uk

Tel. +44 (0) 1786 466272

Fax +44 (0) 1786 466131