Supporting transformative agency in initial teacher education: A Change Laboratory in China

The research programme on transformative agency by double stimulation within cultural-historical activity theory is a resource for responding to pressing societal needs of our time. The peculiarity of this programme lies in the ambition to develop a rigorous approach to grasping processes of collective transformative agency and generating viable pedagogical instruments to support them. The metaphor of warping is useful for this endeavour. In this article the metaphor is applied to three empirical examples to show how collectives generate transformative agency, how the process evolves or flounders, and how it can be supported. The first example stems from a waiting experiment originally described by Vygotsky as a prototypical example of this type of agency. The second and third examples stem from data collected in a study on eradicating homelessness in Finland. The article discusses the implications of this approach for research and practice.

Cultural-Historical Activity Theory has contributed significantly to studying and promoting educational change. Its distinctive concepts inform an approach to interventionist research called the Change Laboratory This paper reports on a Change Lab in an Australian secondary school resulting in major changes for students studying for the Higher School Certificate (HSC) in the final two years of high school. It reports on the key conflict between the HSC as a ticket to university admission (exchange value) and its importance for students’ broader development and future (use value). Expansive learning and systemic contradictions have been frequent reference points in reports of school-based Change Laboratories but more recent developments in theorising transformative agency by double stimulation have received less attention. Addressing this gap, this paper considers the construction and use of artefacts that helped participants understand the problem, and develop previously unknown solutions that resulted in a qualitative transformation of activity. Mirror materials comprising aggregate and individualised student data served as a first stimulus; four-field representations of collective zone of proximal development and germ models functioned as higher abstraction second stimuli, complemented by teacher-generated ideas and models. Changes made by the school transcended the central contradiction in the local activity system, providing valuable insights into the process of change amid widespread critiques of reductive measures of student outcomes at the end of secondary school.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of ideology in band teachers’ agency. We intentionally recruited participants who were critically reflective about the purpose of competition in their band programs. Research questions included: (a) What unconscious, self-evident meanings manifest in band teachers’ agency? and (b) How do aspects of band teachers’ ecological environments animate their agency? We used two theoretical approaches in this study: Fisher’s capitalist realism and Priestley et al.’s ecological framework of teacher agency. We found that music performance was the primary self-evident value that saturated participants’ agency, and it included participants’ unquestioned belief in the benefits of students’ perpetual growth as musical performers. Participants exhibited a type of performance realism in that they could imagine no alternative goals. We suggest that the pervasiveness of capitalist realism in education discourse in the United States makes change through individual teachers’ agency challenging, and the profession’s reliance on individuals’ morally based actions toward change may have stymied widespread reform. Change through teacher agency requires individuals to resist powerful, discursive ideology, structures, traditions, and social pressures, and we recommend that scholars and music teacher educators join in-service teachers as a collective to alleviate some of the harms of capitalism associated with the ideology of competition and performance in music education.

The purpose of this study is to examine music teacher agency within the frames of an in-school music education program in India, as it unfolds in a collaboration between India and Norway. The concept of relational agency, informed by cultural-historical activity theory (Edwards, 2005) constitutes the theoretical framework. The study draws on six interviews with music teachers and one leader of a music school in India. Important for the development of the in-school music program, has been establishing a community of music teachers, which fosters an environment of inclusivity, safety, and professional values. Central to these values is a vision of a music program that sees every child as musically talented and promotes active participation, emphasizing student well-being as much as musical learning. The musical material developed in the collaboration, embodies these professional values and standards. Teacher agency, distinct from teacher autonomy, requires the capacity to align with and negotiate the professional values in the community. Essential to the community is the establishment of a relational infrastructure that enhances agency.

Understanding and effectively using maps and graphs is crucial for navigating our multi-dimensional world. However, several studies confirm poor map reading and interpretation skills among learners globally. This study explored Grade 6 teachers’ experiences in teaching map skills in four primary schools in Gauteng Province, South Africa, using Engeström’s (2001) cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) to identify their teaching challenges. A generic qualitative research design captured the essence of teachers’ experiences, with thematic analysis revealing two key themes that focus on the challenges and opportunities in transforming abstract map concepts into real-world understanding. Varying levels of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, time constraints, and ongoing professional development impact how map skills are taught. CHAT effectively highlighted contradictions, which are essential for driving growth and creating new learning opportunities. Teacher agency was crucial for growth and change, as teachers recognised their learning gaps and sought support from other teachers in their networks.

This paper focuses on connecting natural sciences education with Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). In this sense, natural sciences education is considered as a lifelong learning procedure, not seen as an individual but as a collective activity. Moreover, learning becomes a human activity in which theory and praxis are strongly connected and learning outcomes are obviously seen in society and culture. The paper is a review of five years research on natural sciences education from a CHAT perspective in the Department of Early Childhood Education in the University of Ioannina, Greece. Effort is put on using CHAT as a theoretical framework in order to analyze and design natural sciences education activities. In this regard, teaching natural sciences in a university laboratory becomes a dynamic activity system which involves multiple participants (university teachers, lab assistants, students, early grade pupils etc.). All the participants act towards some common goals, considering scientific knowledge as cultural, historical and social process and using meditative and analyzing tools. Scientific concepts are taught as part of the natural curriculum of natural sciences education at the early grades which is strongly connected with CHAT. At this level scientific learning is connected with inquiring in authentic environments, practicing skills of observation, classification, communication etc., and making sense of the relations and interactions that take place in the world around us. The research question addressed in this paper is to highlight some qualitative dimensions of the socio-cultural aspect of teaching natural sciences in the early grades. Research data have been collected during practical application of lab activities in the early childhood classrooms by observing, video recording, interviewing and analyzing. This part involves university teachers, lab assistants, students, early childhood teachers, early grade pupils who work as a community towards reforming of natural sciences education.

Introduction. Writing for publication has been developed for two last decades as an independent field of research to help authors publish their research articles. Starting from the assessment that preparing the publication in a journal is an academic activity that requires learning to construct the author’s positioning in the manuscript, this paper points out the shortage of professionals to assume institutional organisation of training courses in Russia.Aim. This paper aims to suggest a framework for informal practices based on autonomy and the collective organisation of authors to construct an authorial position in the manuscript or author’s agency toward a target journal.Methodology and research methods. Various approaches applied in this paper are based on activity theory: situated learning, Change Laboratory, and expansive learning.A review of Russian and foreign research in writing for publication shows that only one of the three types of authorial agency, that is, transformative agency, might help the author to prepare a manuscript for publication in a target journal. The framework needed for emerging author’s transformative agency re-conceptualises the model of the Change Laboratory for situated learning that aims at the author’s socialisation in the discursive practices of a target journal. Situated learning for writing for publication is based on the principles of the Change Laboratory: collectivity; double stimulation; overcoming the contradiction by ascending from the abstract to the concrete.Results. A framework for three cycles of expansive learning aimed at the emergence of the author’s agency toward a target journal has been developed. The first cycle allows selecting a journal and revealing its implicit rules for manuscript production. The second cycle is focused on step-by-step manuscript revisions. Finally, a change of journal and/or author whose manuscript is discussed involves the third cycle of expansive learning.Scientific novelty. The paper considers manuscript production for publishing in a journal as an academic activity requiring deliberate training in native and foreign languages. The framework for three cycles of expansive learning in writing for publication conceptualises the publication as the author’s participation in social practices involving the journal as a discursive community.Practical significance. The framework suggested in this paper for emerging transformative agency in writing for publication might imply an alternative to the institutional training courses. Three cycles of expansive learning aim to develop the author’s publication competence and improve the quality of research articles.

Relations between music education structures and teacher agency are under-researched and under-theorized, and scholars have indicated that the traditions and competitions of school bands in the U. S. may constrain educator agency. The need for research on teacher agency in competitive environments is compounded by policy trends toward administrators' use of festival scores in music educator evaluations. The purpose of this instrumental case study was to investigate band teacher agency in a highly competitive music education environment. I used the chordal triad of agency as the primary theoretical framework. Participants were four mid-career band educators in Texas, and I collected data through interviews, observations, journal entries, website review, and email correspondence. Throughout the data, participants' agency largely reproduced existing structures. Findings coalesced around (a) participants' core values of music, students' development, hard work, and competition, (b) an inductive, cohesive collection of band teaching norms despite participants' employment in schools of varying urbanicity and student demographics, (c) power sources that transmitted values and directed teachers' agency, and (d) a compelling story of one participant's generative agency that contrasted with the rest of the data. I provide directions for further research on music teacher agency and suggest implications for band educators, professional music education organizations, and music teacher educators.

The success with which minority teachers cope with socio-cultural integration indicates their transformative agency. However, teachers’ ideational projects, which are converted into a set of established practices, are tightly connected with their ideologies. In this case what they transform is not a matter of integration for them but is irrevocably intertwined with protecting their own culture. Applying a symbolic interactionist methodological lens and Archer’s ’social morphogenesis’ explanatory framework, in this qualitative research I aim to examine the unique educational context of Estonia. Schools with Russian as the language of instruction co-exist with schools where instruction is in the national language. The paper explores the mechanisms that stand behind the social agency of minority teachers and why their practices are considered ‘morphostatic’ for the whole education system. The paper concludes that these teachers’ agency is culturally mediated and their strategies are reflexive and morphogenetic in nature, even though they don’t lead to integration.

This chapter expands discussion of how to promote transformative agency by double stimulation during a Change Laboratory intervention. The intervention was conducted in an agroecological association, geared toward environmental preservation and social inclusion by strengthening family farming and developing agroforestry systems. The chapter analyzes how motives, movement, and mediation interact in the formation of transformative agency. The results show that through double stimulation, participants transformed the way they understood the origin of their problems. The intervention created a space for reflection in which, with the support of auxiliary instruments, the participants were able to produce a transformative movement, analyzing and understanding the structure of their activity, identifying conflicts of motives, and building a new orientation for the future of the activity. This intervention led to a novel concept of the coordination of the association based on the principle of shared responsibilities, as well as to the construction of a proposal to develop the organization.

English language teachers in rural areas often face complex challenges that impede effective teaching and learning. This study investigates the experiences of English teachers in rural schools of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, focusing on resource constraints, professional development gaps, and socio-cultural factors influencing English language teaching. Using a qualitative design, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 rural English teachers (8 female, 7 male) to capture their perspectives. Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed chronic shortages of teaching materials and technology, low student motivation linked to limited English exposure, inconsistent parental support due to socio-economic pressures, and insufficient teacher training and institutional support. These challenges are interrelated and worsen educational inequities between rural and urban settings. Despite these obstacles, teachers demonstrated agency and resilience in adapting to their context. The findings highlight an urgent need for policy interventions, including improved resource allocation, targeted professional development, and community engagement initiatives, to support rural English teachers. This study amplifies teacher voices from an under-researched context and contributes to broader debates on rural ELT, teacher agency, and resource equity in language education.

The growing linguistic diversity of European classrooms, intensified by geopolitical disruptions such as the war in Ukraine, has created pressing challenges for teachers. Yet little is known about how educators sustain their professional identity and agency in these rapidly shifting contexts. This longitudinal qualitative study follows three in-service compulsory school teachers of Czech as a second language through interviews conducted in 2021, 2022, and 2024. Drawing on an ecological framework and the theory of possible teacher selves, the analysis traces how teachers negotiated contextual constraints, mobilized personal resources, and responded to fluctuating institutional supports. Findings show that while teachers took on extensive pedagogical and affective labor to compensate for systemic gaps, such reliance on personal commitment was unsustainable. The study advances understanding of teacher agency in multilingual education and demonstrates that the sustainability of teacher professionalism depends on the development of collective and systemic support structures.

This study investigates the digital literacy of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers and the challenges and support systems they encounter in integrating technology into 21st-century classrooms. Drawing on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews and classroom observations with seven EFL teachers, the research explores the multidimensional nature of teachers' digital literacy, the systemic and emotional obstacles they face, and the informal strategies they adopt to cope. The findings reveal that digital literacy among EFL teachers extends beyond technical skill to include pedagogical adaptability and critical awareness. However, limitations such as infrastructural instability, lack of institutional guidance, and emotional resistance often hinder full digital engagement. Despite these challenges, teachers demonstrate agency by forming peer support networks, engaging in self-directed learning, and drawing encouragement from student feedback. These informal mechanisms, while valuable, highlight the absence of coordinated institutional support. The study concludes that sustainable digital integration in EFL contexts requires a holistic approach that combines technological access, emotional support, and professional learning communities. By reframing digital literacy as a dynamic and context-sensitive practice, the study contributes to ongoing dialogues around teacher agency, equity, and innovation in language education.

This paper contributes to the study of residents’ and civil servants’ transformative agency in urban development with the aid of the framework of cultural-historical activity theory. The aim is to investigate the emergence of transformative agency in five workshops, based on the method of Change Laboratory®, in the city of Espoo, Finland. The formative intervention focused on exploring the collaboration of residents and actors in urban development. The workshop discussions were analysed with the help of the manifestations of contradictions in neighbourhood development connected to the expression of the types of transformative agency and elements of the human activity system. This enabled the identification of the topics of the discussions and the development of transformative agency through envisioning the developmental potential of the activity and taking action to transform it. The findings call attention to creating the tools and means to facilitate the participation and building the transformative agency through time.

Cultural historical activity theory perspectives are drawn in this paper to realize collective transformative agency and the externalization of individual student identity, with students seeking personalized assistance from their teacher while learning mathematics at a grade eight classroom in Sweden. Even as teacher–researcher collaboration and the execution of a five-task formative intervention resulted in realization of transformative agency, the externalization of identity gained from students working with peers and being led in instructional activity that was practical and meaningful to their lives. While the externalization of identity by individual students during their learning resulted in transformative agency realized at the collective level in their teacher’s instructional practice, the role of knowledge within such a practice was found to be just as vital in line with the construct of Transformative Activist Stance.