The Policy-Practice Nexus as ‘Politics of Use’: Professional Autonomy and Teacher Agency in the Classroom

Abstract This chapter approaches the policy-practice nexus by scrutinizing relationship between teacher agency and professional autonomy. Teacher has usually been researched from two different perspectives. On one side, scholars are concerned with questions of autonomy vis-à-vis specific accountability regimes, apply, in broadest sense, a governance framework. other, there is more normatively grounded discussion autonomy, emphasizing how teachers, due to various new forms (neo-liberal) governance, become increasingly de-professionalized. While acknowledging both perspectives, this conflation agency. Drawing on concept ‘politics use’ findings fieldwork China, proposes framework for conceptualizing as they operate systems, involving producing types agents. The chapter’s suggest that ways which policy implementation processes have conceptualized need be reconsidered. Particular attention must paid political-ideological normative specificities investigated system investigator’s own research traditions, ensure can compared across broad variety cases.