| dc.description.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. | en_US |
