Understanding the Dynamics of Teacher Agency, Resilience, and Identity in the Neoliberal Age

Book excerpt: Understanding the Dynamics of Teacher Agency, Resilience, and Identity in the Neoliberal Age focuses on the complexity of teachers’ agency, resilience, and identity across various contexts. Neoliberal educational policy technologies have been constantly (re)shaping educational professionalism, subjectivity, teaching, and evaluation. Within this climate, teacher agency, resilience, and identity are vital factors for maintaining teachers’ well-functioning and well-being. Moreover, teacher agency, resilience, and identity do not exist independently but reinforce each other constitutively, which enable teachers to see beyond challenge and fluctuating confidence and withstand pressure. The educational contexts in this book encompass rural, immigrant, preservice education, special education, internationalized school contexts, etc. Theoretically, this book disentangles the conceptual understandings and methodological considerations of teacher agency, resilience, and identity. Practically, the contributors from various countries and regions explore how various contexts influence teacher agency, resilience, and identity in the neoliberal age.