Teacher Empowerment: Examining Factors and Strategies for Promoting Agentic Behavior

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

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