Exploring English language teachers’ agency in resource-poor secondary state schools of Pakistan: A critical realist perspective

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to understand how (English) language teachers operate in resource-poor secondary state school English language teaching (ELT) contexts. To achieve this aim, Archer’s (1995, 1996, 1998a) critical realist theory: structural conditioning, reflexivity (concerns, values and beliefs), and structural elaboration / social change was adopted for the case analysis and interpretation of the data of the four English language teachers. Employing a qualitative case-study approach, the data was obtained through semistructured interviews, classroom observations and field notes from (initially) eight participant teachers. Although looking through the data from all eight participant-teachers helped a great deal in understanding the phenomenon under consideration, the final report of this study only presents data from four of these participants for the reasons mentioned in the relevant chapters. The findings revealed that the institutional structures (teaching context), where the participant-teachers’ work, conditioned the teacher’ work by constituting an environment of contemporary action and creating certain modes of action when the teachers’ attempted to respond to them in the light of their pedagogical beliefs, values and concerns. During this process, the participant teachers underwent internal conversations / reflexive deliberations, where they weighed different options available to them in the given circumstances. Although, the participant-teachers differed from each other in their reflexive deliberation, such deliberations served as a mediator between the given material structures and the teachers’ actual behaviour (pedagogical responses). On account of operating in similar teaching contexts (institutional structures), and having strong social (collegial) support, the participant-teachers shared many similarities in their response to these structures. Nevertheless, some differing responses are also apparent from the research. The findings also revealed that the structural conditioning occurred in four ways: constraining influences, enabling influences, neither constraining nor enabling and/or both constraining and enabling factors or influences. The constraining factors which appeared were broadly: large classes and associated factors, students and teacher’s related factors, exam paper expectations, classroom facilities, in-service and specialized professional development courses. The social factors mainly included networking with colleagues / teachers forming collegial relationships in their respective schools, while the cultural factors mainly included the teachers’ own positive and negative educational experiences (generally referred to as ‘apprenticeship of observation’), general preservice courses, institutional guidelines / textbooks as well as teachers’ experiences of teaching. All these influences resulted in the teachers’ behavior (or agency) as seemingly compliant but at the same time showing creativity and problem solving, hence demonstrating agentic tendencies of transformation, though not yet fully matured. Although not within the scope of this study to further explore and possibly a next step, such a tendency to innovative/creative moves might be representative of that space where prior structures are gradually transformed and new ones slowly elaborated, that is phase T2 and T3 in Archer’s morphogenetic model (Archer, 1995). Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are addressed in the light of the findings.

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