Advancing Critical Consciousness in DLBE: Factors Shaping Collective Teacher Agency in Classroom-Level Curriculum Reform

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Bilingual Teacher Identity, Agency, and Professional Development

Abstract

This study examined the contextual factors that shaped a teacher team’s collective agency in developing and implementing justice-oriented curricula. Using an ecological model of teacher agency, findings showed that structural, cultural, and relational conditions both enabled and constrained their work. Supports like administrative backing and institutionalized social justice (SJ) commitments fostered curriculum development, while challenges, such as leadership power dynamics, time limits, and differing SJ interpretations, restricted progress. The study highlights agency as dynamic and shaped by context, emphasizing the need to center relational dynamics. It calls for empowering DLBE teachers as curriculum designers to advance justice-oriented education.

Author

• Dolores D. Lopez, University of California - San Diego