Reconceptualizing Teacher Agency: Immanent Events and Posthuman Futures

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 1:45 pm - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Posthuman Reimaginings of Teaching and Teacher Education

Abstract

This theoretical paper reimagines teacher agency through a posthuman and post-foundational lens, conceptualizing agency as emergent within immanent events. Through a systematic interrogation of existing literature, it critiques the residual Enlightenment dualisms and anthropocentric assumptions within dominant models of teacher agency. It instead proposes a Deleuzian framework that decenters the human subject and foregrounds affective, material, and discursive entanglements. Using an illustrative case from elementary practice, the paper demonstrates how agency unfolds within complex pedagogical events. In alignment with SIG 45 and the 2026 AERA theme, it explores how recharacterizing posthuman agency opens new ethical and ontological possibilities for educational research and practice; particularly in contexts shaped by complexity, difference, and justice-oriented inquiry.

Author

• Mark Hardman, Institute of Education - London