Achieving Teacher Professional Agency in Three Professional Development Contexts

• In Event: Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Leadership and Teacher Agency

Abstract

This paper focuses on achieving professional agency of teachers in the context of three national professional development programs in the Netherlands. These programs all explicitly aim at positioning teachers as change agents in their own classes, schools and even beyond. An in-depth qualitative approach was chosen to obtain insight into how, when and under which conditions participating teachers were able to achieve agency in their daily practice. Teachers were followed for one year using semi-structured interviews, log-files, and storyline methods. Findings indicate that professional agency might be perceived, achieved and created as a result of personal factors, school or context factors, and the fact that teachers are involved in two different professional environments in all three projects.

Authors

• Rosanne Zwart, Utrecht University

• Anna van der Want, Leiden University

• Harmen Schaap, Utrecht University

• Helma Oolbekkink, Radboud University Nijmegen

• Jacobiene Meirink, ICLON-Leiden University

• Paulien C. Meijer, Radboud University Nijmegen

• Han Leeferink