When Staying Becomes a Life Project: Unraveling Reflexive Agency and Rural Teacher Retention in Urbanizing China

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Friday 7:45 am
  In Poster Session: Teacher Pipelines, Recruitment, and Pathways

Abstract

This study reconceptualizes rural teacher retention in China as a differentiated reflexive project, using Archer’s theory of reflexive agency. Drawing on qualitative data from rural schools in a rapidly urbanizing county, it identifies five modes of reflexivity—communicative, autonomous, meta, fractured, and a culturally embedded relational reflexivity rooted in kinship and place-based ethics. Rather than being passively retained, teachers actively negotiate their decisions to stay through moral deliberations, affective ties, and strategic planning. Retention emerges not as compliance but as a temporally unfolding life practice. These findings extend Archer’s model and challenge policy paradigms to recognize the ethical labor of staying. Supporting rural teachers thus requires systems that affirm their agency, not just improve incentives.

Authors

• Yuchen WU, Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Jocelyn Wong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong