Moving beyond the agency-structure dialectic in pre-collegiate science education: positionality, engagement, and emergence

ABSTRACT

Agency and structure postulate a dialectic relationship: agents’ actions shape and are shaped by social structure in a spiral and dynamic manner. Empirical studies in pre-collegiate science education contexts, however, tend to focus on individual’s positionality instead of the engagement between agency and structure. This paper first charts the theoretical and methodological terrains of agency and structure from sociological, critical/post-structural, and psychological perspectives. It then reviews empirical studies on the agency-structure dialectic in pre-collegiate science education with a focus on their theoretical frameworks (agency), research contexts (structure), and related methods and methodologies. The reviewed studies are divided into four categories: teacher agency, teacher-and-student agency, student agency, and administrator agency. The results reveal how the agency-structure dialectic is taken up and studied in science education and how the notions of culture and language provide the possibility for hybrid perspectives of agency. We argue that the notion of emergence, based on the engagement within and among individual and collective agencies and structures, is the key to move beyond the current agency-structure dialectic in science education.

KEYWORDS:

• Agency
• structure
• science education
• methodology
• emergence

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. We use postmodernism and poststructuralism interchangeably in this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Peak Discipline Construction Project of Education at East China Normal University [NA].

Notes on contributors

Guopeng Fu

Guopeng Fu is an associate professor at the College of Teacher Education, East China Normal University. His research focuses on teacher agency, especially science teacher agency in curriculum reform settings, in-service teacher professional development, and science reform implementation.

Anthony Clarke

Anthony Clarke is a professor and the co-director of the Centre for the Study of Teacher Education, in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, University of British Columbia. His research interests include student teacher mentorship, the practicum, cooperating teachers, and self-study. He actively participates in various capacities often involving new ways of exploring teacher education initiatives.