Conceptualising Early Career Teachers’ Agency and Accounts of Social Action in Disadvantaged Schools

This article examines the accounts of actions undertaken by Early Career Teachers (ECTs) recently graduated from a social justice-oriented Initial Teacher Education (ITE) program and employed in complex school settings with high levels student diversity, disadvantage, poverty. The study drew on theories teacher agency more broadly to examine workshadowing observations teachers’ practice classrooms augmented their reflective interviews. found that ECTs’ agency, or contextualised action, can be conceptualised as temporally embedded engagement directed at addressing students’ cultural, academic needs. teachers past learnings ITE program, committed future-oriented innovations teaching, made in-the-present decisions about resolve emergent contingencies such resource shortages. We argue these understandings are usefully enhanced recognising contingency, consciousness, criticality creativity additional features deliberative programs action.