In 2008, Iceland launched policy reform in upper secondary education. This paper elucidates how upper secondary school leaders acted when leading reform and confronting teacher responses. The study is based on interviews with 21 leaders from nine upper secondary schools. The data were analysed usingfive response categories to macro-level demands…

Teacher autonomy positively impacts various profession-related variables, including professional self-efficacy, motivation, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, teacher success, and job performance. The development and adaptation of sound instruments will contribute to achieving a complete understanding of teachers' autonomous behavior and…

Our study examines the discursive construction of academic subjectivity within the context of the current reforms of academia, driven by the forces of economization and metricization. We focus in particular on the construction of two models of top researchers. Drawing from the theory of Pierre Bourdieu, we call these models 'autonomous' and…

Special education teachers' (SETs) views on their agency in teacher collaboration were analysed using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). Finnish SETs (N = 238) answered open-ended survey questions concerning successful and unsuccessful collaboration with the classroom teachers in a tiered support framework. The findings revealed that the…

Professionalism in the English Further Education (FE) system has been traditionally discussed in terms of superior teaching practices, attitudes and behaviours. The concept of 'good work' is therefore central to this paper's analysis. Following a Bourdieusian tradition, professionalism is treated as a 'site of struggle' between FE teachers and…

An emphasis on school-led initial teacher training (ITT) in England has marginalised the university role and led to instrumental models of new teacher learning. Rather than commit to continued university involvement in new teacher learning like the rest of the UK, England appears to be following in the footsteps of the USA, where new graduate…

Special education teacher (SET) burnout is a significant concern, especially for SETs serving students with emotional-behavioral disorders (EBD), as they tend to experience higher burnout than other teachers. Working conditions, especially social support, have the potential to ameliorate burnout, but prior research has not articulated the sources…

This article discusses the pedagogic practice of ability grouping in government schools in Delhi. Despite practical evidence against homogenous student settings, ability grouping is implemented as a policy solution to reduce the huge variance in students' learning levels within a classroom. Research data is drawn from interviews with 110…

Job satisfaction among teachers is important for their motivation to effect changes. However, in China, job satisfaction in early childhood education is a pressing issue, which leads to high attrition rates among preschool teachers. Thus, this study examined the role of school culture regarding job satisfaction and teaching autonomy among teachers…

A significant paradox of school autonomy is that it tends to constrain the autonomy of teachers, instead subjecting them to the increased controlling of their work, heightened monitoring, and greater accountability. This paper draws on interview data to show how teachers in accountability-driven and business-like schools face three different but…

Commercial platforms are being increasingly used in classrooms as teaching and learning tools. Beyond shifts in practice to accommodate this, the teacher becomes a tool of the platform -- generating and collecting data for commercial entities. It is time to move from commercial platforms working through teachers to influence education, towards…

The aim of this article is to explore how Swedish principals experienced the decentralisation and re-centralisation reforms and how they affected principals' autonomy and decision-making capacity. Data were obtained from three surveys of Swedish principals, carried out in 2005, 2012 and 2019. The results show that principals experienced a high…

The participation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforces is overwhelmingly low as compared to their male counterparts. The low uptake of cybersecurity careers has been documented in the previous studies conducted in the contexts of the West and Eastern worlds. However, most of the past studies mainly…

The rise of performative culture in education and intensifying forms of test-based accountability have subjected teachers to a ubiquitous 'field of judgment' through which they are held to account. Within this context, professional development is consistently deployed as a key solution to stagnant or declining student outcomes. In this paper, we…

Recent circumstances (e.g., COVID-19, socio-political tensions) exacerbate persistent teacher shortages, reinforcing the need to attend to factors associated with teacher retention. In this multimethod study, we explore outcomes of an online, year-long professional development focused on collaboration and autonomy -- two factors correlated with…