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Education Sciences
Special Issues
Teacher Empowerment: Examining Factors and Strategies for Promoting Agentic Behavior
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Teacher Empowerment: Examining Factors and Strategies for Promoting Agentic Behavior

A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102). This special issue belongs to the section "Teacher Education".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 October 2025 | Viewed by 1276

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Xianhan Yvonne Huang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of curriculum and instruction, Faculty of Education and Human Development, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Interests: informal teacher learning; teaching for creativity; job crafting; teacher self-efficacy; languagee education; professional identity

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the rapidly evolving educational landscape, teachers face unforeseen situations and challenges on a daily basis. Teacher agentic behavior—self-initiated and self-managed actions aimed at enhancing teaching effectiveness—is a critical factor that enables teachers to move from merely surviving to truly thriving. Related concepts in this area include, but not limited to, professional agency, job crafting, teacher autonomy and teacher leadership. Despite the widely recognized importance of teachers' agentic behavior, the antecedents and strategies for promoting it are scarcely explored, warranting further investigation.

This Special Issue presents an opportunity to explore the current trends and strategies for promoting teacher agentic behavior across all levels of education, regardless of discipline or institutional type. Given its relatively nascent status, this Special Issue aims to bring together diverse theoretical perspectives to investigate how to empower teachers. Specifically, it seeks to uncover the affordances and inhibitors influencing teachers’ decision-making and their willingness to go the extra mile in various aspects of their work, including, but not limited to, curriculum design, classroom instruction, STEM implementation and AI education adoption.

This issue targets a diverse audience of academics, teacher educators, teacher researchers and policymakers who aim to foster better teaching performance and professional development, contributing to an education that is more equitable, innovative and attractive.

We welcome studies grounded in a clear theoretical framework, including, but not limited to, job demands and resources theory, self-determination theory, activity theory, professional agency theory, theory of planned behavior and technology adoption theory.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following: 

  • Exploration of Agentic Behavior in Various Contexts: Studies examining how teachers perform agentic behavior across different aspects of their work. These studies can utilize quantitative designs (e.g., experimental, quasi-experimental), qualitative designs (e.g., case study, ethnography) or mixed-method designs. 
  • Personal Factors Influencing Agentic Behavior: Research focused on personal factors such as beliefs, personality, attitudes and knowledge that influence or interact with teachers’ agentic behavior. 
  • Contextual Factors and Agentic Behavior: Studies investigating the interaction between contextual factors and teachers’ agentic behavior. 
  • Review studies on Teacher Agentic Behavior: Comprehensive reviews of the literature on teacher agentic behavior or related topics, including, but not limited to, professional agency, job crafting, teacher autonomy and teacher leadership. 

By addressing these themes, this Special Issue aims to advance our understanding of how to empower teachers effectively, thereby contributing to the broader goal of educational innovation and improvement. We look forward to receiving contributions that offer new insights and practical strategies for fostering agentic behavior in teachers. 

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Xianhan Yvonne Huang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • teacher empowerment
  • agentic behavior
  • professional agency
  • job crafting
  • teacher autonomy
  • teacher leadership
  • technology adoption
  • STEM education
  • innovative teaching

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 1155 KiB  
Article
Coaching for Agency, Authority and Advocacy in Dual Language Bilingual Education
by Brandon Sherman, Jennifer Renn and Trish Morita-Mullaney
Educ. Sci. 2025, 15(3), 328; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15030328 - 6 Mar 2025
Viewed by 515
Abstract
In education broadly, and in dual language bilingual education (DLBE) specifically, advocacy for marginalized student populations is recognized as a teacher’s responsibility. Yet, advocacy represents both an orientation and a skill set that teachers must develop. Therefore, there is a need to better [...] Read more.
In education broadly, and in dual language bilingual education (DLBE) specifically, advocacy for marginalized student populations is recognized as a teacher’s responsibility. Yet, advocacy represents both an orientation and a skill set that teachers must develop. Therefore, there is a need to better understand how teachers can be supported in developing their capacity to advocate. Approaching advocacy in terms of teacher agency and authority, we look at one form of professional learning support, instructional coaching. In this comparative qualitative case study, we explore how one experienced instructional coach collaborated with four DLBE teachers to help them develop as agentive advocates for their students. We draw on the Vygotsky space theoretical model to understand the four cases and suggest augmentations to the model based on the findings and analysis. Though all teachers made progress in growing as agentive advocates, the constructivist Vygotsky space model highlights the differences in pace, scope, and action among them. The cases also suggest three points in the existing model where the coach appeared to influence teacher growth: Encounter, appropriation, and pre-publication. Insights into coaching, advocacy, and the Vygotsky space model have implications for supporting teachers in agentively advocating for marginalized students in their charge and beyond. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Teacher Empowerment: Examining Factors and Strategies for Promoting Agentic Behavior)
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23 pages, 1434 KiB  
Article
Are Exotic Monks Better at Chanting Sutras? Tension and Integration Between Performance-Based Personnel Management and Indigenous Guanxi Culture
by Qian Zhao, Wen Li and Yan Fan
Educ. Sci. 2025, 15(3), 285; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15030285 - 25 Feb 2025
Viewed by 304
Abstract
Enhancing rural teacher agency to foster more proactive and enthusiastic teaching practices is crucial for addressing the underdeveloped state of rural education. In recent years, the introduction of performance-based personnel management, such as performance-based pay, has been a significant reform initiative. This study [...] Read more.
Enhancing rural teacher agency to foster more proactive and enthusiastic teaching practices is crucial for addressing the underdeveloped state of rural education. In recent years, the introduction of performance-based personnel management, such as performance-based pay, has been a significant reform initiative. This study focuses on the first county in Beijing to implement performance-based personnel management, conducting a three-year longitudinal investigation to explore how established Western management policies perform when confronted with guanxi (Chinese-style relationships) that emphasize familiarity and personal ties. Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling, the study analyzes three waves of longitudinal data from 516 teachers in a Beijing county, examining the impact of performance-based personnel management on teacher agency and the mediating and moderating roles of guanxi. The findings reveal that (1) Performance-based personnel management did not enhance teacher agency as anticipated. In fact, the stronger the initial guanxi among teacher groups, the more negative the policy’s impact on teacher agency. (2) Guanxi culture exerted a suppressing effect on the policy. In rural China, the indigenous guanxi culture hindered the implementation of performance-based personnel management, eroding collaborative networks among teachers and obscuring the policy’s intended positive effects. Performance-based personnel management weakened work connections among strong-guanxi groups while directly boosting the agency of weak-guanxi groups. (3) Instrumental guanxi demonstrated greater adaptability to policy changes compared to affective guanxi. Overall, externally imposed performance-based personnel management faces significant adaptive challenges within China’s deeply rooted guanxi culture. The effectiveness of such policies is constrained by their degree of alignment with local cultural and social structures. Therefore, policymakers should consider local cultural characteristics in educational policy design to enhance the adaptability and effectiveness of these policies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Teacher Empowerment: Examining Factors and Strategies for Promoting Agentic Behavior)
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