TRACING SIGNATURE DYNAMICS OF EFL TEACHERS’ AGENCY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE IN TÜRKİYE: RETRODICTIVE QUALITATIVE MODELLING

Abstract

Drawing upon CDST (Complexity Dynamic System Approach), this case study aims to explore how English language teachers in Türkiye exercise their agencies for social justice issues in classes with marginalized students and the factors affecting their agency enactments. Previous work in this field confirmed contextual and time-sensitive feature of individual teacher’s agency (Leal & Crookes, 2018; Li & De Costa, 2019; Pena-Pincheria & De Costa, 2021), yet, there is no elaborate inquiry into early-career EFL teacher agency archetypes and their characteristics, teachers’ developmental agency trajectories, and underlying factors influencing their agency. This study aimed to investigate early-career EFL teachers' agency development for social justice issues at schools including marginalized group of students. To fulfill this aim, a retrodictive qualitative modelling approach (Dörnyei, 2014) was employed. The initial phase of the approach, focused on identifying system outcomes, referred to early-career EFL teacher agency archetypes for social justice issues. The second phase aimed to pinpoint prototypical teachers that exemplify their archetypes well. The final phase sought to trace the developmental teacher agency trajectories of these prototypical teachers, aiming to uncover dynamic signatures that explain how the system reaches these outcomes (Chan, Dörnyei & Henry, 2015). Data were collected with a survey, semi-structured interviews, and written reflection forms. At the first phase of the study, 112 early-career EFL teachers completed the survey designed by Pantic (2017). Then, teachers’ agency archetypes for social justice issues were defined by conducting hierarchical and k-means clustering analysis with SPSS. At the second phase, prototypical teachers were identified by the researcher and the school principal based on the participants’ survey results. At the third phase, written reflection forms were collected form six prototypical teachers (two teachers for each archetype) and semi-structured interviews were conducted with them. This study is significant in terms of providing a holistic understanding of dynamic, interacting, unpredictable nature of teachers’ agency for social justice issues. Also, it might have important implications for teacher trainers, school administrators, and policy makers, highlighting the needs to prepare teachers pedagogically and emotionally to act for social justice issues in diverse teaching contexts.