Can Agency Be Imposed? Examining Teacher (Re)Positioning During the Ongoing Curriculum Change in Cyprus

• In Event: The Unintended Impact of Education Policy Implementation

Abstract

For the past few years, the Republic of Cyprus has been pursuing a major educational reform across all levels of mandatory education, focusing especially on curricular change, for the implementation of which in-service teachers have undergone a series of professional development seminars. Individual and focus group interviews with in-service teachers, regarding their sense of professionalism within this curriculum change process, revealed that teachers positioned themselves largely onto different points on a continuum. These are conceptualized as positions from none to full agency with regards to teachers’ perceived autonomy over the implementation of the new official curriculum. Framed by a traditionally centralized context, these positions were discursively negotiated in contradictory ways which allowed multiple positionings by each teacher.

Authors

• Stavroula Kontovourki, University of Cyprus

• Stavroula Philippou, University of Cyprus

• Eleni Theodorou, European University