Academic Journal
Conceptualising Early Career Teachers' Agency and Accounts of Social Action in Disadvantaged Schools
| Title: | Conceptualising Early Career Teachers' Agency and Accounts of Social Action in Disadvantaged Schools |
|---|---|
| Authors: | Kettle, Margaret, Burnett, Bruce, Lampert, Jo, Comber, Barbara, Barnes, Naomi |
| Source: | Australian Journal of Teacher Education. Aug 2022 47(8):1-17. |
| Abstract: | This article examines the accounts of actions undertaken by Early Career Teachers (ECTs) recently graduated from a social justice-oriented Initial Teacher Education (ITE) program and employed in complex school settings with high levels of student diversity, disadvantage, and poverty. The study drew on theories of teacher agency and agency more broadly to examine the workshadowing observations of the teachers' practice in classrooms augmented by their reflective accounts in interviews. The study found that the ECTs' agency, or contextualised social action, can be conceptualised as temporally embedded social engagement directed at addressing their students' cultural, social and academic needs. The teachers drew on past learnings from their ITE program, committed to future-oriented innovations in teaching, and made in-the-present decisions about actions to resolve emergent contingencies such as resource shortages. We argue that these understandings are usefully enhanced by recognising contingency, consciousness, criticality and creativity as additional features of the teachers' deliberative programs of action. |
| Language: | English |
| Availability: | Edith Cowan University. Bradford Street, Mount Lawley, West Australia 6050, Australia. Web site: http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/ |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 18 |
| Publication Date: | 2022 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Descriptors: | Beginning Teachers, Social Action, Disadvantaged Schools, Professional Autonomy, Experience, Social Justice, Student Diversity, Poverty, Foreign Countries |
| Geographic Terms: | Australia |
| ISSN: | 0313-5373 1835-517X |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2023 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1381669 |
| ISSN: | 0313-53731835-517X |
| Database: | ERIC |
Availability