A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Teachers’ agency during the Covid-19 lockdown: A new materialist perspective




AuthorsHeikkilä Mirva, Mankki Ville

PublisherRoutledge, Taylor & Francis Group

Publication year2023

JournalPedagogy, Culture and Society

Volume31

Issue5

First page 989

Last page1004

ISSN1468-1366

eISSN1747-5104

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2021.1984285

Web address https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14681366.2021.1984285

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/67465846


Abstract

Teachers’ agency is an essential factor in understanding and developing pedagogics. The study adds to the previous research by employing a new materialist perspective, highlighting the notion that teachers’ agency is not merely a matter of humans, but results from assemblages of both human and nonhuman elements in teaching. The context of the study is the school lockdown period of the Covid-19 pandemic. Twenty Finnish primary teachers were interviewed to explore how teachers verbalised the rapid transition to a distance teaching environment and to discern what kind of agency that transition unfolds. The findings illustrate lost agency, but simultaneously, new forms of agency emerging from the entanglement of humans and materiality in the changed assemblages. This understanding helps to support both preservice and in-service teachers’ agency in ways that acknowledge the complexity of teacher learning beyond individualistic and controllable views in increasingly multifaceted teaching environments.


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Last updated on 2025-13-02 at 16:07