Experiencing Agency Within an Urban Education Doctoral Program: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Case Study

• In Event: Transformative Calls for Educational Reform in Urban Contexts

Abstract

The marginalization of urban students is revealed symptomatically via test scores, school resegregation, dropout/pushout rates, and teacher retention issues. Transformative education calls for the liberation of students through their own agency. A democratic perspective demands teachers embody efficacy towards their own agency so that facilitation is co-constructed in a classroom and be aligned throughout the teacher preparatory structure. Pre-service teachers are influenced by the efficacy of agency that teacher educators and scholars maintain, of whom require agenic efficacy as well. Where teacher educators and scholars receive formal training? Doctoral programs. This study employs hermeneutic phenomenological case study to explore the experiences of doctoral students in an urban education program to flesh out a conceptual model of teacher and student agency.

Author

• Bethany Lyn Salyers, University of North Carolina - Charlotte