Turning the kaleidoscope
Oosterhoff, Maria
DOI:
10.33612/diss.160821650
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2021
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Oosterhoff, M. (2021). Turning the kaleidoscope: multiple enactments of professional autonomy in early
childhood education. University of Groningen. https://doi.org/10.33612/diss.160821650
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Chapter II
Turning the kaleidoscope ◊ Chapter II Theoretical frameworks 25
Theoretical frameworks
This chapter provides a summary and clarification of the theo-retical concepts that guide the study as a whole: the theotheo-retical frame-works employed in the course of the research project. At the start of the study, a broad exploration of the literature related to the no-tion of professional autonomy in general and to teacher professional autonomy in ECE in particular was undertaken. Further elaboration, expansion and development of the theoretical concepts took place in interaction with the analysis of the three subsequent studies. By work-ing in this way, a diversity of theoretical perspectives enabled us to explore teacher professional autonomy in ECE from different angles. The aim of this chapter is to present an overview of the main theoreti-cal frameworks that guided the research project as a whole. Firstly, the concept of professional autonomy will be explored using several theo-retical frameworks: Professionalism (Evetts, 2013), Teacher Autonomy (Pearson & Moomaw, 2006), Self-determination Theory (SDT) (Ryan & Deci, 2000) and the Ecological Approach to Teacher Agency (Priestley et al., 2015). Secondly, specific attention is paid to professional practice, in which the research project is situated. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) (Latour, 2005) was of particular value in discerning the emerging na-ture of professional practices. This theoretical framework is further expanded in Chapters IV to VIII in relation to the specific issues that are addressed in each chapter.
While presenting the different theoretical frameworks in this chapter I will briefly address how they mutually connect and discon-nect. The chapter also provides clarity about how the concept of pro-fessional autonomy is used in this study, but without aiming for clo-sure. In Chapter IX, after having discussed the research findings of the study as a whole, I will return to and elaborate on the question of how best to understand the concept of professional autonomy.
This chapter is divided into two sections. In Section 2.1, the two-fold term ‘professional autonomy’ is explored, by addressing some closely related notions: professionalism (Evetts, 2013), autonomy (Pearson & Moomaw, 2005; Ryan & Deci, 2000) and agency (Priestley et al., 2015a). In Section 2.2, Actor-Network Theory (Latour, 2005; Law, 2008; Mol, 2010) is explained and discussed as it offers an amplifica-tion of the understanding of autonomy and agency.
2.1 Teacher professional autonomy
Professionalism and autonomy are concepts that have often been the subject of public debate and scientific research; however, identify-ing the underlyidentify-ing theoretical dimensions of the concept of teacher professional autonomy is not straightforward. Several terms that are closely related or partly overlapping are used in the literature, includ-ing: autonomy, agency, personal professionalism, professional space, task autonomy, teacher leadership. Moreover, they are interpreted in various ways. In this section, the twofold term ‘professional auton-omy’ is explored by discussing the two closely related concepts of professionalism and autonomy, framing these concepts in the con-text of the teaching profession. In addition, the ecological approach to teacher agency (Priestley et al., 2015a) is presented and related to the concept of teacher professional autonomy.
Professionalism
On the basis of a historical literature overview, Evetts (2013) ar-gues that professionalism is a derivative of the advanced division of labour in modern societies, and the need for trust in economic rela-tionships that spring from this division. In a public service such as education, the public must trust the professionals, and the profes-sionals must be worthy of that trust; thus, do their jobs in a good way. Important questions then arise: What is good? and, moreover: Who
decides what is good? Is it the professional or the public, represented by the government? Evetts (2013) argues that both answers can be given with respect to professional practice: professionalism can be constructed from within and professionalism can be imposed from
above. When professionalism is constructed from within, which Evetts labels occupational professionalism, a normative value system is pro-duced and repropro-duced by individual practitioners in and through their work and workplaces, based on collegial, cooperative relationships and competences that are assumed to be guaranteed by education and training. Currently, however, professionalism is increasingly imposed from above, which has resulted in a form of organizational
profession-alism, which Evetts describes as ‘a discourse of control’ with external-ized forms of regulation and accountability measures (ibid., p. 787).
Evetts (2013) discusses these two forms of professionalism as ideal types. However, she argues that, in a particular professional sit-uation, there is no simple distinction between ‘professionalism con-structed and operationalized ‘from within’ or ‘from above’’, but rather a certain balance between the two; a balance that fluctuates overtime (Evetts, 2013, p. 790). In the Dutch educational context, this instability has been illustrated by Kuiper et al. (2013), who describe Dutch educa-tional policy over the last 40 decades as a continuing ‘complicated
bal-Turning the kaleidoscope ◊ Chapter II Theoretical frameworks 27
ancing act’ between regulation and freedom (p. 141). Contradictions are apparent in these everyday practices. Teachers see their profes-sionalism being defined by others, and when these definitions differ from how they define themselves as professionals, there are likely to be tensions (Day & Gu, 2007). These tensions between professional responsibility and accountability become tangible. Dealing with these tensions, teachers perform their own balancing act on a daily basis. ‘In situations calling for responsible decision-making professionals must balance competing versions of the “good”’ (Fenwick, 2016, p. 18).
Currently, there is an increasing tendency to impose profession-alism from above as a control mechanism and to improve practice ‘from a distance’ (Evetts, 2013, p. 787; see also Biesta, 2009; Fenwick & Edwards, 2010; Kelchtermans, 2007; Osgood, 2006; Parker 2015). Scholars repeatedly caution against an imbalance, in which a culture of performativity arises in the wake of organizational professionalism: the pressure to perform in terms that are defined and measured by external actors (Kelchtermans, 2012; Priestley et al., 2015a). Technical systems of documentation, evaluation and calculation replace a form of horizontal control, ‘operationalized by practitioners themselves who are guided by codes of professional ethics’ (Evetts, p. 787). For-mal and universal standards compete with the traditional professional standards of teaching, such as responsibility, autonomy and expertise (Kelchtermans, 2012), which are called on less and less. Kelchtermans argues that teacher professionalism cannot be externally defined (by governments, or experts), but becomes manifest in daily teaching practice, in which educators shape their concern for children through their engagement with them. In this relational moral practice, tech-nical certainty regarding desirable effects can never be guaranteed. Teachers make decisions on the basis of their professional knowledge and accumulated experience, but also based on constant reflection on what works and is desirable at any one moment, for a particular stu-dent, in multifarious daily educational situations. Thus, teacher pro-fessionalism needs a certain amount of space for autonomous action.
Autonomy
Educational researchers have demonstrated the importance of professional autonomy for teaching quality. A large body of research literature has established a link between the opportunities teachers have to give personal direction to their everyday work and the effec-tiveness of that work. Three main points are made in the literature. Firstly, according to Biesta (2011), Bleach (2014) and Kelchtermans (2012), teachers have the knowledge and experience to make the right decisions about complex and changing classroom practice. Secondly, Fullan (2007) and Wenger (2010), among others, argue that top-down
decisions aimed at improving education often lack the necessary sup-port in daily practice. Thirdly, several researchers have found that work-related autonomy affects work satisfaction, motivation, stress levels and further professional development (e.g., Day & Gu, 2007; Kelchtermans, 2012; Martens, 2013; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Van den Broeck et al., 2008).
The definition of teacher autonomy is, alike many concepts in the field of sciences, ambiguous. Researchers investigating teacher auton-omy have used different terms interchangeably to explore the concept of autonomy, such as autonomy itself or work control, independence and freedom (Moomaw, 2005). While Moomaw discussed this elabo-rately more than a decade ago, more recent work on teacher autonomy still uses different, closely related and sometimes overlapping terms – such as autonomy, agency, personal professionalism, professional space, task autonomy – each providing different starting points for the study of professional autonomy from different angles (Champy, 2018; Parker, 2015; Ronningstad, 2017). Autonomy in the context of the teaching profession is often defined in terms of perceptions, de-scribing how individuals sense the space they have for personal in-fluence on work processes (Moomaw, 2005). Most studies of teacher autonomy emphasize ‘task autonomy’, that is, the extent to which the teacher can act independently and influence their work environment, in terms of both carrying out their own tasks in the classroom and in-fluencing school-wide decision-making (Moomaw, 2005). Studies also frequently emphasize that autonomy should not mean isolation from others (Fullan, 2007; Pearson & Moomaw, 2005; Stroet et al., 2013). Scholars agree that in education there is always a professional need for cooperation, and, in addition, as addressed above, a regulated space: legal regulations, prescribed competences and core objectives, to which the teacher must comply (Evetts, 2013; Onderwijsraad, 2013; Parker, 2015; Pearson & Moomaw, 2005).
While providing a broad spectrum of possible views on the con-cept, Pearson and Moomaw (2006) narrow down their definition of teacher autonomy to one of perceived control: ‘teachers’ feelings of whether they control themselves and their work environments’ (p. 46). In the 1980s, Deci and Ryan (1985, 2000) took another perspective in their conceptualization of autonomy in Self-determination Theo-ry (SDT), based on accumulated research and documented in many contexts, most in educational settings at many age levels, but also in other workplace settings (Bernstein, 1990). This conception of autono-my emphasizes the basic psychological feeling of functioning without pressure. This ‘psychological freedom’ can also occur with a task that is assigned by others, when people ‘grasp its meaning and synthesize that meaning with respect to their other goals and values’ (Ryan &
Turning the kaleidoscope ◊ Chapter II Theoretical frameworks 29
Deci, 2000, p. 74). SDT emphasizes the importance in such instances of enabling a deep holistic process, in which rules and codes of con-duct imposed by the environment are internalized by understanding them and aligning them with one’s own goals and values (self-determi-nation) (Deci & Ryan, 1985).
Deci and Ryan’s (1985) SDT highlights the importance of auton-omy for motivation and engagement and, by extension, for effective functioning. SDT is applied to many domains, frequently to educa-tion (Stroet et al., 2013), and has recently also been applied success-fully to empirical research within the workplace (Van den Broeck et a., 2009). SDT distinguishes three innate, basic psychological needs that determine people’s motivation and wellbeing: competence (a feeling of being able to cope with a particular task), autonomy (a sense of having chosen the task oneself) and relatedness (a safe social environ-ment). The three basic needs play mutually dependent roles. SDT is particularly interesting in the context of this study because it focuses attention on the importance of autonomy for the quality of motivation and engagement. Autonomous motivation is essential for optimizing development and performance: ‘motivation produces’ (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 69). Autonomous motivation indicates that the person has a feeling of ‘wanting to act themselves rather than be directed or com-pelled’ (Van den Broeck et al., 2009, p. 324).
A distinction is often made between intrinsic and extrinsic moti-vation. Intrinsic motivation arises when the task itself is enjoyable and interesting, while with extrinsic motivation, the task has an outcome beyond the task itself, such as a salary or avoiding sanctions. SDT suggests a more nuanced model, in which the kinds of motivation are proposed as a continuum from inferior to high quality (see Figure 2.1). Intrinsic motivation is located on the extreme right of the continuum, as the highest quality form of motivation. SDT also states, however, that forms of extrinsic motivation can also evoke high-quality ‘autono-mous motivation’. I took this term for Ryan and Deci’s (2000) moti-vation with an internally perceived locus of causality from Van den Broeck et al. (2009). If someone feels that the reason for the activity has personal value, the reason lies outside the task itself and therefore involves external motivation. However, this person will nevertheless be autonomously motivated because (s)he identify with the reason for the task. Autonomous motivation, therefore, helps to satisfy the in-nate basic need for autonomy. Ryan and Deci (2000) also distinguish forms of ‘external motivation’, for which Van den Broeck et al. (2009) use the term ‘controlled motivation’. In controlled motivation, the be-haviour is carried out in order to obtain material or social rewards or to avoid material or social penalties. These forms of controlled moti-vation are correlated with feelings of pressure, obligation and control (Van den Broeck, 2009).
Numerous empirical work-related studies have shown that fulfil-ment of these basic needs has a positive impact on employee wellbe-ing, engagement and performance (e.g., Gagné & Deci, 2005). Employ-ees whose basic needs are fulfilled are more satisfied with their work, are exhausted less often, devote more time to their work, are more prepared to change, and are less likely to resign (Van den Broeck et al., 2009). Teacher motivation largely arises from intrinsic motivation, the pleasure they experience in the everyday execution of their teaching role (Day & Gu, 2007). However, as discussed above, teachers also act within a framework of rules and norms that are imposed from out-side. Combined with reward systems, these externally imposed goals, evaluations and sanctions might contribute to a feeling of ‘having to do it for others’. As mentioned above, SDT emphasizes the importance in such instances of enabling a deep holistic process, in which rules and codes of conduct imposed by the environment are internalized by understanding them and aligning them with one’s own goals and values (self-determination) (Ryan & Deci, 2000).
SDT is particularly valuable to this dissertation because it exam-ines and determexam-ines the contextual conditions that support or sup-press autonomous motivation (e.g., Stroet et al., 2013). Right from the start, Deci and Ryan (1985) showed that contextual factors promote the internalization of the regulation of uninteresting but important ac-tivities. Since then, there has been a great deal of educational research on how teacher behaviour influences the autonomous motivation of pupils (Assor et al., 2002; Stroet et al., 2013). Researchers have
identi-Figure 2.1 The self-determination continuum showing types of motivation, with their regulatory styles, loci of causality and corresponding processes (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 72)
Turning the kaleidoscope ◊ Chapter II Theoretical frameworks 31
fied different elements of autonomy-enhancing teacher behaviour. Re-cently, the value of SDT for an understanding and shaping of the work context has also become increasingly apparent, which highlights the potential relevance of school leadership to autonomous motivation.
The value of SDT for practice lies largely in its concrete guide-lines for aligning the learning, home and work environment with the three basic psychological needs (Appleton et al., 2008; Assor et al., 2002; Deci et al., 1994; Minnaert & Oldenthal, 2018; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Van den Broeck et al., 2009). Without losing sight of the fact that mo-tivation arises partly within individuals themselves, SDT has a major focus on the way in which the context can affect people’s functioning by influencing the quality of motivation (Minnaert, 2005; Minnaert & Oldenthal, 2018). Alignment with the need for autonomy plays a cen-tral role in this. In this respect, Deci et al. (1994) identified three con-textual factors that facilitate the internalization of externally imposed behaviour (self-determination): providing a rationale for the iour; acknowledging the perspective of those from whom the behav-iour is expected; and persuasive rather than coercive communication.
While some contextual factors can promote the internalizing pro-cess, others can hamper this process (Assor et al., 2002). Research-ers have identified various elements of autonomy-enhancing teacher behaviour, all of which have a counterpart in autonomy-suppressing behaviour: offering choices rather than interrupting self-determined activities that are perceived as meaningful; promoting and identify-ing relevant activities rather than exposure to meanidentify-ingless activities; permitting rather than suppressing criticism; showing respect rather than lack of respect; and using informative rather than controlling language. In line with this, Van den Broeck et al. (2009) refer to con-crete ways in which school leaders can stimulate or block autonomous motivation of teachers. It may be encouraged, for example, by offering choices, explaining the reason for the assigned tasks, aligning with the values of teachers and showing confidence in their competences. If, however, teachers experience pressure, obligation and control, this comes at the expense of autonomous motivation.
Various other researchers have confirmed the principal’s influence on the perceived extent of autonomy in the teaching context (Fullan, 2007; Imants et al., 2016). The role of recognition and trust is regu-larly highlighted. Based on a review of this research within educa-tion, Moomaw (2005) confirmed the link between autonomy and job perception, and its importance for teaching effectiveness: ‘perceived lack of control and sense of powerlessness are related to tension, frus-tration, and anxiety among teachers’ (p. 18). Moomaw also confirms the principal’s influence on the perceived degree of autonomy in the teaching context, in which trust and recognition play a role: ‘extending
autonomy is based on a principal’s confidence and trust in teachers’ professional judgement’ (p. 21).
Kelchtermans’s (1994) narrative-biographical study also revealed how feelings of autonomy are very important for teacher motivation. Teachers derive their feelings of self-worth from carrying out duties that have been defined over time. Kelchtermans’s (1994) study also highlighted the importance of the principal’s role as an enabler. If there is high dependence on external decisions, and especially if peo-ple feel excluded from policy decisions, this has a negative effect on commitment and therefore on professional motivation. External lack of recognizing of a teacher’s professional expertise can also have an adverse effect on professional motivation through feelings of self-worth. Hökkä et al. (2017) state that in human-centred work, such as in education, emotions are integral and appear to be connected to or-ganizational productivity. Leaders play a particularly important role in creating a positive emotional atmosphere.
In The New Meaning of Educational Change, Fullan’s recommen-dations for strengthening teacher autonomy focus mainly on the teacher’s environment; on how educational innovators and principals can help create conditions that promote professional autonomy. In order for teachers to reject, accept or adopt a change in behaviour deemed desirable by their environment, they need to take time to ar-rive at a shared understanding of the assumptions and values that underlie that change in a well-founded way (Fullan, 2007). Fullan also points to the importance of communication in creating trust and self-confidence. This demonstrates a close relationship between the basic needs specified by SDT – autonomy, relatedness and competence.
Finally, differences between the two groups (pupils and employ-ees) to which SDT is applied should be emphasized. In principle, the academic goals that guide the school curriculum are externally formu-lated and are therefore not a priori intrinsic goals of the pupils them-selves, or at least not goals that they are very aware of. With regard to autonomy-enhancing behaviour, teachers are expected to play an active, empathic role, in which they use their knowledge and under-standing of their pupils to align the school aims with their pupils’ interests and needs, to help them become aware of the goals and to explain their relevance to them (Assor et al., 2002). Professionals in a work situation, however, are primarily driven by intrinsic motivation (Day & Gu, 2007) and have – more or less conscious – views about the goals and values that underpin their work (Kelchtermans, 2012). In a professional situation, therefore, recognizing expertise seems more important than explaining relevance.
Some scholars are also critical of the limited scope of teacher autonomy understood as a mere space to act independently or as a
Turning the kaleidoscope ◊ Chapter II Theoretical frameworks 33
sense of having chosen the task oneself. Priestley et al. (2015a) argue that the professional teacher operates within a complex socio-political landscape, in which the interests of many different stakeholders must be balanced, including their own interests. To position teachers in this landscape as active agents, they emphasize the role of agency and therefore propose an ecological approach to teacher agency, which is clarified in the following subsection.
Agency
Acknowledging the inherent tension between external regula-tion and freedom as part of the teaching profession, the ecological approach to teacher agency (Priestley et al., 2015a) offers an impor-tant amplification of the concept of teacher autonomy. This approach shifts the focus from autonomy as mere perceived professional space to a more layered perspective in which the teachers themselves ac-tively achieve agency by exploiting that space (Oolbekkink-Marchand et al., 2017). In a broad sense, the notion of teacher agency describes the intentional actions of teachers aiming to transform and improve their educational practice (Lipponen & Kumpulainen, 2011; Toom et al., 2015). Within the ecological approach, the aim is to understand ‘how teachers might enact practices and engage with policy’ (Priestley et al., 2015b, p. 2). Agency is seen as an emergent phenomenon that is achieved in everyday practice through the interplay of personal ca-pacities and environing conditions. Teachers ‘possess unique profes-sional expertise and experience’, thus, when it comes to balancing the interests of different stakeholders, ‘their professional voice and their professional judgement matter’ (Priestley et al., 2015a, p. 5).
Drawing profoundly on the work of Emirbayer and Mische (1998) on human agency, the ecological approach to teacher agency entails three closely related key dimensions (see Figure 2.2). The first is the iterational dimension, comprising everything within teachers’ life and professional histories that they bring in to handle a dilemma, includ-ing their own education, their initial traininclud-ing, and their teachinclud-ing expe-rience to date. This accumulated expertise – personal capacity (skills and knowledge), beliefs (professional and personal) and values – must be used selectively on the basis of reflection to make judgements in response to the emerging ambiguities of daily teaching practices. This points to the second dimension of teacher agency, namely the
practi-cal-evaluative dimension. Teachers’ professional expertise should be a resource for their judgements and actions, rather than a mere set of practical skills and competences. Priestley et al. (2015b) highlight an important consequence of this assumption:
Actors able to draw upon a rich repertoire of experience might be expected to develop more expansive orientations to the future and draw upon a greater range of responses to the dilemmas and problems of the present context, than might be the case with their more experientially impoverished compatriots. (p. 4)
This statement foregrounds the third, projective dimension of agency, comprising the short- and long-term orientations of actions. These aspirations for the future may support policies or oppose them. Priestley et al. (2015b) warn that they can also become narrowed, of-ten as ‘the result of systems of accountability and performativity that create perverse drivers and incentives’ (p. 6).
This contextual influence brings back to mind the
practical-eval-uative dimension, and points to the role of cultural, structural and ma-terial factors pertaining to the context in which agency is enacted. The judgements that teachers have to make in response to the emerging ambiguities in daily teaching practices are practical as well as evalua-tive, shaped by what is possible or impossible within a given context and based on expected risks or desirable future outcomes. Cultural, structural and material elements combined shape the context in which agency is either facilitated or inhibited.
Following Emirbayer and Mische (1998), Priestley et al. (2015a) propose their model as an analytical framework which enables the exploration of how teacher agency is achieved in situated professional practice. The three dimensions, and further aspects within these di-mensions that are likely to shape agency, offer an analytical framework
Figure 2.2 A three-dimensional model for understanding the achieve-ment of agency (Priestley et al. 2015b, p. 4)
Priestley, M., Biesta, G.J.J. & Robinson, S. (2015). Teacher agency: what is it and why does it matter? In R. Kneyber & J. Evers (eds.), Flip the System: Changing Education from the Bottom Up. London: Routledge.
4
term orientations of action. And with regard to the practical-evaluative dimension we make a distinction between cultural, structural and material aspects.
(First published in Priestley, Biesta & Robinson, 2013)
The model highlights that the achievement of agency is always informed by past experience – and in the particular case of teacher agency this concerns both professional and personal experience. The model also emphasises that the achievement of agency is always orientated towards the future in some combination of short[er] term and long[er] term objectives and values. And it illustrates that agency is always enacted in a concrete situation, therefore both being constrained and supported by cultural, structural and material resources available to actors. The following sections outline these ideas in more detail.
The iterational dimension of agency
Emirbayer’s and Mische’s ideas are helpful because they first of all show that agency doesn’t come from nowhere but builds upon past achievements, understandings and patterns of action. This is expressed in the iterational element of agency which has to do with ‘the selective reactivation by actors of past patterns of thought and action, routinely incorporated in practical activity, thereby giving stability and order to social universes and helping to sustain identities, interactions, and institutions over time’ (ibid., p.971; emph. in original). A key word here is ‘selective’. Emirbayer and Mische note that while some writers suggest that ‘the agentic reactivation of schemes inculcated through past experience tends to correspond to (and thus reproduce) societal patterns’ (ibid., p.981), this level of routinisation does not have to be the case. Actors do not always act from habit, following routinised patterns of behaviour, but are able to recognise, appropriate and refashion past patterns of behaviours and experience as they seek to manoeuvre among repertoires in dealing with present dilemmas and engage in expectation maintenance in their orientations to the future. A key implication here, is that actors able to draw upon a rich repertoire of experience might be expected to be able to develop more expansive orientations to the future and draw upon a greater range of responses to the dilemmas and problems of the present context, than might be the case with their more experientially impoverished compatriots.
In respect of teachers, we would point to a number of iterational aspects which contribute to teacher agency. These include personal capacity (skills and knowledge), beliefs (professional and personal) and values. What these have in common is their rooting in past experiences. Clearly, for the teachers of tomorrow, it is important to attend now, in present contexts, to the nature of what will become those past experiences. This is where the importance of teacher education lies, not only
Turning the kaleidoscope ◊ Chapter II Theoretical frameworks 35
that can be used to guide data-gathering and assist data analysis. This artificial analytical separation, however, explicitly seeks to examine the dynamic interplay between different components in professional practice. Priestley et al. (2015a) applied this framework in a 15-month empirical ethnographic study into the way teachers achieve agency, as part of an ambitious educational improvement project, ‘Curriculum for Excellence’, in Scotland. This empirical work highlights that agency is achieved as an outcome of the interplay of the different dimensions, identifying teacher agency as temporal and relational. Teacher agency is revealed as an emergent phenomenon, ‘shaped by a range of differ-ent features in the context of schooling – both cultural and structural – in addition to being formed by the capacity of teachers’ (p. 136). Con-sequently, Priestly et al. (2015) argue, enhancing teacher agency needs to focus on fostering teachers’ individual capacities – i.e. their ability to imagine alternative possibilities in the light of the wider aims of their professional practices in response to emerging events – and to consider a range of cultural and structural conditions under which these teachers exercise their practices.
Priestley et al. (2015a) emphasize the difference between teacher agency and teacher autonomy, at least those interpretations of auton-omy which consider that only the teacher should decide on all edu-cational matters, and thus suggest a comparative absence of external regulation. While I agree with this standpoint, I argue that this position does not apply to teacher professional autonomy. As argued above, the teaching profession, as a public service, operates within cultural, structural and material circumstances that fluctuate, for example, in response to the enactment of mechanisms of external control. Studies frequently emphasize that autonomy should not mean isolation from others (Fullan, 2007; Pearson and Moomaw, 2005; Stroet et al., 2013). In addition to the professional need for cooperation, there is always a ‘regulated space’ in education, due to legal regulations, competences and core objectives, to which teachers will have to comply (Onder-wijsraad, 2013; Pearson & Moomaw, 2005). Furthermore, within the teaching context, a core of the professional responsibility of a teacher entails meeting short- and long-term objectives, as they engage with their pupils’ development from the perspective of their futures to come (Kelchtermans, 2012). Thus, I argue here that, for teacher au-tonomy to be called ‘professional auau-tonomy’, teacher agency – as un-derstood by the ecological approach – should be incorporated.
2.2 Actor-Network Theory
The literature discussed above is based on a largely human-cen-tred conception of autonomy and agency, which is associated with hu-man intention, initiative and power, as is most literature on autonomy,
according to Fenwich (2016). Actor-Network Theory (ANT), however, highlights the often overlooked agency of nonhumans: the things that overcrowd the world and, thus, professional practice. Things have agency. They act to make a difference. From an ANT perspective, therefore, agency is not reserved for human actors but is distributed across networks of humans and nonhumans.
In addition, there is another important difference between ANT and the above theoretical frameworks. Although the term might be misleading, many ANT scholars do not regard ANT as a theory. In so-cial science, theories usually aim to find coherent laws that explain, for example, social behaviour or the existence of social hierarchies and inequalities. However, Latour (2005) argues that ANT is primarily a method. ANT does not aim to explain the social world as a coherent system. Instead, it aims to describe, to tell ‘stories about “how” rela-tions assemble, or don’t, at different sites of mundane, messy local practice’ (Law, 2009, p. 141). Latour (1999) describes ANT as ‘a very crude method to learn from the actors without imposing on them an a priori definition of their world-building capacities’ (p. 20).
ANT has become an important part of the landscape of social sciences (Sayes, 2016). The aim of ANT research is to describe micro-practices in order to investigate and study how humans and nonhu-mans constantly co-constitute and perform mundane, emergent, local practices. ANT is practice-oriented. It has a pivotal interest in concrete practices, with materiality highlighted in particular. Practices, as Reich and Hager (2014) argue, are fluid and emergent, as they are under-stood as constitutive entanglements of humans and things.
In this section, a brief introduction to the origins and develop-ment of ANT is provided, followed by the illumination of some of its key assumptions. General outlines will be plentifully illustrated by empirical studies from various disciplines. In doing this, I follow Law (2009), who emphasizes that, while ANT can be described in the ab-stract, it only becomes real in the various ways it is enacted in prac-tice: ‘Knowledge lies in exemplars and words are never enough’ (Law, 2009, p. 144). I will also highlight how ANT has been taken up by edu-cational researchers, although it is still under-applied in eduedu-cational studies (Mifsud, 2020).
Actor-Network Theory and ‘after ANT’
ANT originates from the field of Science, Technology and Society (STS), and has become increasingly popular as an analytical framework in a range of social science fields (Law, 2008). Callon (1986), Latour (1987) and Law (1987) all argue and demonstrate in their early work how science, technology and all other social phenomena in society are the effects of the production and reproduction of networks. For
Turning the kaleidoscope ◊ Chapter II Theoretical frameworks 37
example, Latour (1987) shows how scientists who seem to do their work in laboratories isolated from the rest of the world, are in fact highly dependent on a range of networks that spread far beyond those laboratories, providing the tools, the authority, the money, which are needed to enable scientists to do their knowledge-producing work. To study social phenomena – as these seminal works of ANT advocate – it is necessary to attend to the work that is done to engage others in net-works and to strengthen the associations between the entities in the networks. In doing so, they reject any notion of an a priori separation between humans and nonhumans, society and nature, the social and the technical.
This symmetry is a vital notion in ANT, often denoted as a
so-ciomaterial, posthuman or more-than-human approach. However, this key notion has also been the main focus of criticism of ANT (McLean & Hassard, 2004; Mifsud, 2020; Sayes, 2014). ANT accounts are either accused of symmetrical absence, for example because ‘the creation of symmetry … still appears to be in the hands of the analyst’ (McLean & Hassard, 2004, p. 502), or accused of being too radical and eras-ing differences between humans and theras-ings (symmetrical absurdity). However, McLean and Hassard (2004) note that: ‘proponents of ANT do not necessarily deny such differences and divisions. Rather they question their a priori status and argue that these divisions should be understood as effects or outcomes’ (p. 507).
Another criticism of ANT, this time profoundly articulated from the inside (e.g., Latour, 1999; Law, 1999, 2008), was directed to early ANT writings that slipped towards a singular, technical and stable un-derstanding of networks and a language of strategy, applying ANT as a consistent theory. ‘Complexities … are lost in the process of label-ling’, when naming, formulating and making explicit what ANT is (Law, 1999, p. 9). These reflections led to more explicit attention being paid to the fluid, temporal and situated understanding of networks. Recent understandings of ANT, which often are labelled ‘after-actor-network’ (Law, 2008), account for ontological multiplicity – the way more or less different realities are enacted in different practices – and address the consequences of this multiplicity for politics and intervention (Latour, 1999; Law, 2008; Mol, 1999, 2002). It is to this ‘after ANT’ work I mainly relate in this dissertation. In what follows, this very concise introduction to ANT will be exemplified by illuminating some of the most important notions of ANT.
Key notions of ANT
In this section, I discuss the following key notions of ANT that were of particular relevance to my study: the power of things (symme-try); the existence of actor-networks; multiplicity; the notion of trans-lation; and black-boxing.
Symmetry
Generally speaking, people tend to think about things in terms of how humans use these objects for their own purposes. Arriving at work, the teacher opens the door so that she can go inside. How-ever, when using things, those things also invite and sometimes make people act in particular ways. When the teacher finds the classroom door locked, she must find a place to put her morning cup of coffee in order to search for the keys in her bag. Or consider the latest gadgets in public toilets, with people waving their hands to make the sensor water tap work. Things act on people, changing their behaviour. Hultin (2019) demonstrates this by contrasting two different reception areas at the Swedish Migration Board and the way the materiality of these areas predefined the identities and behaviour of asylum seekers. One office, with open, height adjustable counters and a single ticket sys-tem, enacted the applicants as customers, with the right to initiate contact and express their needs, as if checking into a hotel. The other, with thick glass windows and a categorizing ticket system, enacts the applicants as pleading asylum seekers, waiting for their turn on the other side of the window as a potential safety risk. Things do, they make a difference (Mol, 2010). Once one starts looking at things in this way, it is often not immediately clear who or what is in charge, the person or the thing. Is it the car driver who decides to obey the law by buckling up, or is it the annoying sound of the seatbelt alarm that is pressing her to do so? (Latour, 1992). Is it the teacher, using a teaching method (i.e. a pre-designed teaching approach), who decides to talk with the children about ‘wind’ this morning, as it fits into the theme of the month, and for which many scripted activities, routines and resources have been provided? Or is it the teaching method that
invites her to address this topic today?
A pivotal notion of ANT is symmetry, the idea that human and nonhuman actors are equally important and capable of changing each other (Latour, 2005). The way in which things shape daily routines in teaching practice, however, is often neglected in educational research (Fenwick & Edwards, 2010; Mifsud, 2020). Imagine an ordinary mo-ment in the ECE classroom and consider the vast number of objects that help to enact the teaching at that very moment, such as tables, toys, teaching materials, cupboards, computers, schedules, clocks, teaching methods, ring-binders, observation forms, notebooks, pens, digital boards. Where educational research in general tends to focus on personal and social processes, ANT researchers foreground the ac-tive role of material objects, assembling in practices.
As mentioned above, this key notion of symmetry has also been the main focus of criticism of ANT (McLean & Hassard, 2004; Mifsud, 2020; Sayes, 2014). Critics accuse ANT of equating nonhumans with
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humans (Sayes, 2014), or even giving nonhumans a higher status (Mifsud, 2020). However, ANT does not intend to make such claims. ANT is not a theory which attempts to determine the relative power of humans or nonhumans. Instead, and alongside other ANT scholars, I see ANT as a ‘methodology that is aimed at incorporating nonhumans into social accounts’ (Sayes, 2014, p. 143), precisely because within ANT there is a profound uncertainty about who or what is acting. I will clarify this uncertainty in the following sections.
Actor-networks
As discussed in the previous section, ANT focuses on what things
do. How things act. What is important is that things do not act on their own. They act as part of networks. The common way of thinking about things is to see them as separate objects, each with their own identifiable characteristics. ANT draws attention to the way things in practice are connected to a multitude of other things and humans. Together these human and nonhuman actors form networks or as-semblages that, entangled, constitute what the thing actually is and what it does. Thus, it is not the teaching method per se that invites the teacher to address a certain topic in a certain way, it is the teach-ing method assemblage that acts: the teachteach-ing method plus a myriad of other actors to which the teaching method is connected, often far removed from the classroom where the teaching happens, such as publishers, knowledge, experts, legal frameworks, funds, technology. Together these actors shape what the method is and does, how the method ‘co-constitutes’ (Thompson, 2015) the practices in the particu-lar assemblage of which it is a part: co-constitute, because when the method enters a specific classroom, for example as part of a school improvement project, the actors within this classroom network (like teachers, students, teaching materials, schedules, events) in their turn act upon it, become part of the network, transforming the method into what it is and does at this moment in this specific practice. Fenwick and Edwards (2010) take the playground as an example. The play-ground is a gathering of toys, swings, sand, grass, bushes, fences, children’s bodies, games, safety rules, fences, supervisory gazes, and more. Together these human and nonhuman things, and the way they are related, form a network that perform or enact the ‘playground’ as an identifiable entity that itself becomes an actor which acts: ‘that can produce fears, policies, pedagogies, forms of play and resistances to them’ (Fenwick & Edwards, 2010, p. 8).
Through their relations, actors in networks make a difference in practices; they change and are changed by each other. Law (2009) calls this semiotic relationality, ‘a network whose elements define and shape one another’ (p. 145). All actors, including humans, are
ed as relational effects. A teacher, for example, is not a pre-existing entity, but is what (s)he is through her/his activities in the midst of things that together with her/him co-constitute and enact specific teaching practices. What the teacher is, at a certain moment and in a certain place, is produced in fluid, constantly shifting networks that extend through time and place: by schedules, teaching methods, ac-cumulated teaching ideas, relationships – with this year’s class of chil-dren, with colleagues, with parents – and also by things at a distance, like regulations, books, databases (Fenwick & Edwards, 2010). Thus, as addressed above, for ANT, it is always uncertain who or what is acting here and now. Or better: ANT always asks who-what is acting and what is happening when humans and nonhumans interweave (Thompson, 2018), Concepts such as individual autonomy are challenged. The agency of a particular nonhuman (or human), thus, never occurs in isolation but is always connected to all the humans and nonhumans that are lined up behind it (Sayes, 2014).
As soon as one realizes that every element that gathers in a par-ticular network is itself an actor-network, the complexity and fluidity of the ‘social’ comes into view (Latour, 2005). Therefore, professional practices emerge as part of complex assemblages that are in a con-stant state of flux. A schedule, a teaching method, a language test, a book, all are what they are and do what they do because of their shifting relations with other entities. Röhl (2015) demonstrated this phenomenon in a study on educational artefacts, presenting the ‘biog-raphy’ of a geometrical prism and an aeroplane model used in a math-ematics class on geometry. Röhl followed these artefacts, which carry mathematic knowledge, from their design, through manufacturing, marketing and storage, until they finally entered the classroom to be used in the teaching. Röhl shows how, at each of these sites, the object is transformed. The aeroplane model becomes a different thing at dif-ferent sites: it is a design, a prototype, a promotional text, a labelled and categorized object, as it moves from site to site, and, finally, in the classroom, teachers have to act on it to transform this mere functional device into an educational object by putting it at centre stage, point-ing out its geometrical features, askpoint-ing questions and talkpoint-ing about it. Along the way, numerous other sites are involved, such as ministries of education, universities and seminars, blackboards. Röhl argues that all of these different sites are not separate but mutually entangled. Distant locations become present in the classroom; however, the class-room is also present at the other sites, in which it had to be foreseen how the artefact was going to be used, sold or stored best to become part of the classroom network. Röhl (2015) calls this the ‘transsitu-ative perspective’ (p. 129): educational work is not a local affair but distributed and multi-sited.
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Studying practices as complex and fluid actor-networks brings another vital ANT notion into view, multiplicity, which is extensively described by Mol (1999, 2002, 2010).
Multiplicity
Mol (2010) points to the double notion of ‘doings’. An actor acts, it does things, it makes a difference, and at the same time, the actor is made to be, it is enacted by what is around (Mol, 2010). Actors become real as part of activities that take place ‘then and there’ (Mol, 2002, p. 33). Consequently, the ontological question of ‘what exists’ is an-swered in a specific way. Actors, and practices that emerge as an effect of a specific gathering of actors, shape ‘what is’. Gatherings of people and things enact reality. Moreover, because different things are gath-ered and used in different places, multiple versions of reality emerge.
Mol (1999) illustrates this in the field of health care, using anae-mia as an example. In different medical spaces different tools are used and as a consequence anaemia is actively enacted in these different spaces as different versions of the disease. In the doctor’s consult-ing room, the patient tells about complaints and observations on the outside of the body are made. In the laboratory, however, blood is tapped from the veins and put into machines that produce a number for each blood sample, which is then compared to standards. As a consequence, diverse versions of anaemia emerge in different places. The anaemia diagnosed in the clinic is a set of visible symptoms and complaints articulated by the patient; the anaemia diagnosed in the laboratory is a low haemoglobin level in a person’s blood. Reality be-comes multiple.
Often different realities co-exist without conflict, they even coop-erate and depend on each other. However, sometimes they clash (Mol, 1999). Practices and the realities they enact are not always equally powerful. Networks of weaker knowledge can become colonized by networks of dominant knowledge (Fenwick & Edwards, 2010). For ex-ample, on the basis detailed observations of daily practice in a day care centre in Denmark, Plum (2016) showed how the professional identi-ties of the nursery teachers was transformed through the enactment of an evidence-based language-acquisition programme, which was es-tablished to enhance the professional development of the workers. Plum observed how the nursery teachers started to refer to the project as part of their professionalism, and how their previously established skills and routines lost their status as professional behaviour. Former identities became marginalized, as was apparent in a statement by one of the teachers, after she had not worked with the project materials: ‘I do not feel I have done any professional work today’ (Plum, 2016, p. 8). However, detailed observations of their activities with the highly
scripted programme revealed that the nursery teachers needed all their former accumulated skills and knowledge to make the evidence-based project ‘work’ in everyday practice.
Translation
As I have outlined thus far, ANT scholar suggests that actor-net-works are not stable and fixed, but are constantly produced and repro-duced in practice. Consequently, practice is not conceived as a stable entity that ‘behaves’ according to social laws that enable the prediction of an outcome, such as innovation. Rather, practices, understood as constitutive entanglements of humans and things, are unpredictable, fluid and emergent (Reich & Hager, 2014). ANT studies attempt to trace this multitude of fluid associations between people and things and their effects in situated practice. Power is one such effect: ‘Power and domination have to be produced, made up, composed’ (Latour, 2005, p. 64). Actor-networks do things. They act to make a difference. They transform or translate. Moreover, actor-networks differ in the way they succeed in translating or changing other entities (as networks) to be-come part of an assemblage of heterogeneous actors. ANT researchers pose questions about the way networks achieve, expand and reinforce or loose authority. An important notion in ANT that assists in the ex-ploration of these questions is translation. Translation describes how a particular collection of actors came to be assembled and what sus-tains their connections. Connections can be weak or strong, and they are held in balance by their ongoing mutual negotiations.
Network configurations vary in stability and durability. ANT scholars explored ‘the logics of network architecture’, looking ‘for configurations that might lead to relative stability’ (Law, 2009, p. 148). Networks make themselves more stable, at least temporarily, by en-rolling other actors, that is, by defining and attributing interrelated roles to actors who align as a result of a series of negotiations (Callon, 1986). As an example, I turn to the work of Plum (2016), who por-trays how PISA assessments, and the media interest in graphical PISA listings, spurred the political problematization of the Danish school system. A series of alliances were established in response to the defi-nition of ‘the Danish school system as a failure’ and the ‘poor reading skills’ of Danish children (Plum, 2016, p. 6). Many actors were enrolled in an effort to improve future reading skills, such as the Ministry, clas-sifications of reading ability, metaphors of prevention and reparation, researchers, test developers, the union for nursery teachers, day care centres, books, and evidence-based scripted pedagogies. In this pro-cess, the reading disabilities and embedded categories became ‘part of the problematisation, which generalises that all Danish children are at risk’. As part of this problematization, evidence-based scripted
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gogies became ‘a relevant answer in all Danish day care’ (ibid., p. 5); hence, ‘stabilising it as an objective and effective intervention’ (ibid., p. 7).
Two logics apply when examining network stability. First, as Law (2009) argues, material objects tend to hold their form better than face-to-face contacts: ‘It is easier to imprison people if there are prison walls’ (p. 148). Fenwick and Edwards (2010) discuss evaluation practic-es in education in this rpractic-espect: ‘accounting creatpractic-es a continuous form of control precisely because it can proceed without any interpersonal contact. Numbers can be gathered and transformed into measures of educational inputs and outputs that circulate through texts, codes, da-tabases and pedagogical devices to govern activity’ (p. 116). A second logic network architecture states: the more connections, the stronger the network (Latour, 2005). As Law explains: ‘Prison walls work better if they are part of a network including guards and penal bureaucracies’ (Law, 2009, p. 148).
As addressed above, the teaching method assemblage seduces the teacher into performing certain activities. However, its invitational qualities (Adams & Thompson, 2016) become increasingly compelling and indispensable when authoritative actors become enrolled in this particular method assemblage. The method becomes less and less likely to be subverted in teaching practice when the content of the teaching method, for instance, is based on standards that are set by the government and assessed by the inspectorate; when the didactic activities in the method are designed according to the latest scientific evidence about ‘what works’, published in scientific journals and pro-fessional magazines and translated into courses and seminars; when progress tests are based on the content of the method and aligned with the evaluation system throughout the rest of the school.
However, an important aspect of the ANT approach is that there is never any direct causality. As Latour states, ‘things might author-ize, allow, afford, encourage, permit, suggest, influence, block, render possible, forbid, and so on’, but they do not determine (Latour, 2005, p. 72). Law, again, explains this by amplifying the prison example, which I used earlier: knotted bedsheets can subvert prison walls (Law, 2009). The teaching method might become a mediator through which forces and meanings are transported from other networks into class-room practices; however, these transfers are always done in more or less modified ways. In this way, teachers as well as teaching meth-ods are translated when they connect in everyday practices. Teachers can ignore, subvert, work around or adjust prescribed instructions. They can skip an issue, they may modify the prescribed activities, merge them with other teaching materials, or they might forget about the whole teaching method and leave it on the bookshelf. Translation
helps to describe how practices emerge as sociomaterial effects of the ongoing negotiations at the connections between actors. This, then, creates the opportunity to investigate more political questions about the assemblages under investigation; questions about authority, (im) balance and exclusion/inclusion. One of the ANT concepts that helps to explore these questions is the notion of black-boxing.
Black-boxing
Black-boxing is a powerful stabilizing factor. Actor-networks can become so extensive and stable that they become naturalized or taken for granted. An assemblage of former ‘disorderly and unreliable allies’ is ‘slowly turned into something that closely resembles an organised whole’, mobilized to ‘act as one’ (Latour, 1987, pp. 130-131). Latour (1987) calls this a black box. A scientific fact is one example (Latour, 1987): it is accepted as undisputed, and it is used in current scientific practices or other fields without necessarily requiring an awareness of the network assemblages in which it is entangled. Actor-networks are transformed through processes or objects that maintain themselves and appear to be inevitable, for example ‘a mandated list of teaching com-petencies or a so called evidence-based educational practice’ (Fenwick & Edwards, 2010, p. 11). The work that was necessary to bring these networks into existence and keep them in balance becomes hidden and hence lost to critical intervention. Law (2009) states that ‘the larg-est part of the webs we draw on and allow us to act are hidden. An actor is always a network of elements that it does not fully recognize or know: simplification or “black boxing” is a necessary part of agency’ (p. 147). The more extended the black-boxed assemblages, the harder it is to open the black box, that is, to recall and understand what has become hidden. Thus, the harder it is to question the authority of the black box (Latour, 1987).
Ceulemans (2015) illustrated this phenomenon by drawing on ANT to explore the Flemish professional standards for teachers. She describes these standards as networks that gradually developed and became widespread, entangled with a myriad of other networks, such as teacher training programmes, student (self)evaluation systems and inspection reports. Furthermore, teacher educators began to consider their own professionalism through the elements of a list of Flemish professional standards, and to use this list to present their institutes as offering ‘good’ teacher training programmes in self-evaluation prac-tices. Ceulemans (2015) describes how these practices finally resulted in a situation in which the standards had become taken for granted and black-boxed. Questioning them became irrelevant, as Ceulemans (2015) found, and illustrated by quoting some of the responses of teachers when she questioned the legitimacy of the standards: ‘They
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are just words, what are you worried about?’ One participant even con-sidered her question as an attack on reasonableness: ‘Don’t you want a competent teacher for your child?’ (p. 14, translated). The standards are ‘just there’ and using them has become routine, thus replacing questions that might be asked (again), for example about what a good
teacher is and what a good teacher training programme looks like. However, actor-networks are never fixed and everlasting, nor complete or total. Black boxes can be opened again, as Ceulemans (2015) did by tracing and describing the connections between human and nonhuman actors that together actively (albeit not always pur-posefully) co-constitute and enact practices. Opening black boxes ena-bles the consideration of unnoticed and perhaps unintended effects: opening black boxes, and thus (re-)addressing what has been taken for granted, is an important aim of ANT research.
Relevance to practice and policy
ANT sees the world as constantly being constituted by the ongo-ing and shiftongo-ing relations between people and thongo-ings. Sociomaterial approaches are especially valuable in making visible the complexity and multiplicity of networks. ANT scholars aim to show the ambigui-ties of mundane practice and provoke questions about them. They do not seek certainty. They waive overall social explanations and general solutions to tensions that occur in practice (Latour, 2005; Mol, 2010). Sociomaterial approaches are also valuable in making visible the pow-ers that flow through networks. Doing away with social forces that operate from somewhere, opens up the possibility of seeking those forces right under our nose, to find out what powers are made of. Rather than seeking overarching explanations of social phenomena and being directed away from the local, the researcher comes closer to it (McLean & Hassard, 2004). ANT ‘leads away from an external critique of professional patriarchy … towards more specific internal interven-tions’ (Law, 2008). ANT accounts attempt to make the complexities and tensions visible so as to open them up for re-thinking and pos-sible interruption. Instead of presenting findings as matters of fact, ANT research approaches issues as matters of concern (Latour, 2004), with their ‘webby, “thingy” qualities’ clearly visible (p. 237). ANT re-search takes ongoing tensions to be a permanent feature of practice and as important signs of and entrances to significant issues that are worthwhile exploring and learning about. How can this be done? This effort is not to be conceived as an effort to seek for a coherent order of things but as an ongoing collective effort in practice, done bit by bit, a process referred to by Mol (2010) as tinkering:
The terms and texts that circulate in ANT … sharpen the sensitivity of their readers, attuning them/us to what is going on and to what changes, here, there, elsewhere. In one way or another they also intervene, not from a place of overview, but rather in a doctoring mode. They care, they tinker. They shift and add perspectives. (Mol, 2010, p. 265-266)
2.3 (In)compatible contradictions
I started the research with an open, inquiring theoretical orienta-tion, which led to the use of several theoretical frameworks in order to better study professional autonomy and related concepts, such as professionalism, autonomy, agency and professional practice. Some of these perspectives complement each other, but others appear to be mutually exclusive. Over the course of the chapter, I briefly not-ed some of the contradictions between the four different theoretical frameworks: autonomy understood as task autonomy; autonomy un-derstood as psychological need; the ecological approach to agency; and ANT. In this final section, I would like to highlight and discuss some of the generative incongruities between the three frameworks discussed in Section 2.1. Following this, I will address the more chal-lenging contradictions between those three theoretical frameworks and ANT, as outlined in Section 2.2, elaborating mainly on the contra-dictions between the ecological approach to agency and ANT.
Firstly, the differences between task autonomy (Pearson & Moomaw, 2006) and autonomy as a psychological need (Ryan & Deci, 2000) are obvious, the latter placing more emphasis on the feeling of being able to function without pressure than on the opportunities to actually direct everything oneself. Despite this difference, there is a sense of relatedness between the two conceptions. Task autonomy might be one of the conditions in the workplace environment that supports the basic need for autonomy (Van den Broeck et al., 2008). In Study 2, I explored this relationship by testing a model in which autonomy was regarded as a mediating variable between management style and the basic need for autonomy (see Chapter V).
Secondly, in contrast to Priestley et al. (2015), I do not see their ecological model of agency as contradicting teacher autonomy, which, according to Priestley et al., in its narrowest sense would suggest the relative absence of external regulation. Instead, I regard the ecological model as an important amplification of the concept when consider-ing teacher professional autonomy. As argued in Section 2.1, the com-plex and fluctuating professional context, the many stakeholders in the field of education, and the inherent responsibility of the profes-sional teacher to meet short- and long-term objectives, necessitates the incorporation of teacher agency – as understood by the ecological
Turning the kaleidoscope ◊ Chapter II Theoretical frameworks 47
approach – into teacher professional autonomy. However, during the course of this PhD project, other differences came to the fore. Work-ing with the different theoretical perspectives at different stages, they appeared to do different things; the concepts enacted professional au-tonomy differently. I will address these differences in the final chapter, when discussing the different enactments of professional autonomy as part of the different studies in the PhD project as a whole (Section 9.3).
There are more challenging contradictions between the three the-oretical frameworks presented in Section 2.1. and ANT (Section 2.2). The literature discussed in Section 2.1 is based on a largely anthro-pocentric conception of autonomy and agency. One could argue that the attention that ANT gives to the agency of things is a welcome and necessary amplification of the ecological model of agency. Priestley at al. (2015) do acknowledge that material conditions are part of the ecology, and they oppose commonplace definitions that see agency as human capacity. Although they state that the ecological view of agency ‘sees agency as an emergent phenomenon of the ecological conditions through which it is enacted’ (p. 22), their approach remains predominantly human-centred. The main shift in focus appears to be that ‘agency is not something that people can have or possess; it is rather to be understood as something that people do or achieve’ (ibid., p. 22). From this perspective, agency still involves human intentional-ity, although human intentional behaviour is influenced by ‘causative properties of contextual factors’ (ibid., p. 23), which are said to be ma-terial structures, among other factors. However, empirical work pre-sented by Priestley et al. (2015) based on this model mainly focuses on the cultural, relational and discursive conditions. The role of material conditions remains under-addressed. It would be interesting and en-riching to amplify the empirical attention given to material conditions by sincerely and explicitly acknowledging the agency of things, as is done by ANT.
However, any attempt to merge the ecological approach to agency and ANT in this way would reveal a far more challenging contradic-tion between both approaches: a contradiccontradic-tion between singularity and multiplicity. Like the other theoretical frameworks discussed in Section 2.1., the ecological model of agency aims to describe a coher-ent theory that explains agency by addressing the complexity of the concept through acknowledging the contextual dimensions in shaping agency. ANT, on the contrary, does not aim to explain the social world as a coherent system. ANT is not a theory. It is primarily a method (Latour, 2005); a way to study complexity. The emergent character of agency as understood by ANT, is of another kind. It is far more fluid, contradictory and temporary than the emergent character of agency
as presented by Priestley et al. (2015). ANT waives the imposition of predefined structures or cultures as explanatory factors, and studies how agency is distributed in practices, among people and things in ever fluctuating alliances. The unique contribution of sociomaterial theories is that this view treats the social and the material as inter-twined and mutually constitutive (Fenwick, 2014).
How was I to deal with these challenging contradictions between the theories discussed in Section 2.1 and ANT? My first reflex was to find ways to argue the contradictions away. Like most people, I do not feel at ease when cognitive dissonance occurs. However, as part of the unfolding project, I began to see the value of these incongruities. ANT encourages to consider contradictions as important features of prac-tices and thus advocates their acknowledgement, instead of arguing them away. Thus, I challenged myself to exercise my ‘ability to toler-ate incommensurability’ (Lather, 1993, p. 679) and see what it would bring to the project. Embracing the theoretical contradictions became an important part of the methodologically heterogeneous approach of the PhD project, which will be discussed in the next chapter.
