Content area
As a language education policy, Curriculum Ideology and Politics (CIP) has constructed an ecological environment for teacher agency. From the ecological perspective, this study explores the manifestations of and influencing factors in university EFL teachers’ agency through policy analysis, interviews, classroom observations, and reflective journals. The study finds: (1) In the spatial dimension, the macrosystem exhibits a clear ideological tendency but teacher agency is positive and active; the exosystem indirectly promotes teacher agency and acts as a mediating tool; the mesosystem limits or even suppresses teacher agency; within the microsystem, teachers implement the policies in their own teaching styles but often lack sufficient scaffolding. (2) In the temporal dimension, the practical-evaluative system shows the most evident teacher agency, while the iterative and projective systems show relatively less evident teacher agency. The interaction of the spatial and temporal dimensions jointly constructs teacher agency. The study suggests that the implementation of CIP requires the introduction of third-party forces and greater active roles to be played by intermediate institutions.
Introduction
As reflective subjects in the educational process, teachers’ agency is closely and inseparably linked with language policy (LP) and planning (Gao, 2019). As the frontline implementers of educational policies, teachers ultimately determine whether these policies can be successfully enacted (Liddicoat and Baldauf, 2008; Tao and Jiang, 2021). In a sense, teachers also “make” policies; they recontextualize and reinterpret policy texts based on their professional histories, institutional, and social backgrounds, exerting agency within the local educational system. This is a creative, reflexive, and contextual translation process (Meo, 2019). Compared with other agents, teachers in the implementation process of LP are in non-equivalent positions, as it is a discursive practice (Lee, 2021) that reflects the language ideologies of the macro level (e.g., policymakers) relative to other levels of LP (e.g., schools) (Fitzsimmons-Doolan, 2019). Despite this, there is room for mutual adjustment between institutional power and teacher agency (Chung and Choi, 2016; Liu et al., 2020), which provides a stage for the exercise of teacher agency in new LP contexts (Liu et al., 2020).
On December 7, 2016, China held a national conference on ideological and political work in universities, stating that all courses should advance in the same direction as Ideological and Political Theory courses, thereby creating a synergistic effect. This set new requirements for all course teaching. Teachers need to fully explore the ideological and political content and elements within each course, continuously improving moral cultivation so that professional and ideological learning occur in the same direction and develop synergistically. As a new teaching concept, Curriculum Ideology and Politics (CIP) has become one of the mainstream directions of curriculum reform in universities (Chen, 2021), and teacher agency has become an important and timely topic for teachers in China, as is the case in other countries where nationalism is emphasized. As English has become a lingua franca worldwide, and is a dominant language in most countries’ universities, if not the only one (Liddicoat and Kirkpatrick, 2020), it holds particular importance in a globalized China (Jiang, 2020). CIP, as a new LP for university foreign language teachers, constructs a new linguistic ecology for them, and makes the investigation of EFL teachers’ agency more necessary. Such an investigation helps to thoroughly examine the role of foreign language teacher agency in responding to LP and more accurately understand the implementation process of CIP.
Literature review
Teacher agency
Agency is a significant attribute of human behavior and a major topic of debate among social scientists. Related concepts include self, motivation, belief, intentionality, initiative, freedom, and creativity. While many scholars equate agency with or see it as encompassing these concepts, they generally affirm the ability of humans to control themselves and construct their identity in changing settings. In the ecology of LP construction, teacher agency is taken as the capacity of teachers to construct language education policies as a form of rights, and it is viewed as a dynamic, complex, and ongoing social and professional process. This aligns with Liddicoat’s (2018) understanding of teacher agency, which he sees as the relationship between the roles teachers play in LP and their ability to respond to policy changes and make their own choices. Teacher agency is not something one has but rather an ability to act (do) (Biesta et al., 2015). It is dynamic, emerging over time through interactions within social practices (Priestley et al., 2015a; Xu and Zhang, 2022). It is also a complex and ongoing social and professional process (Ruan and Zheng, 2019; Liu et al., 2020; Tao, 2022). Related research has been conducted on teacher agency from three main aspects: (1) the interaction among teacher professional development, influencing factors, and teacher agency (Tao et al., 2020; Pantić, 2021); (2) the interaction between teaching reform and teachers’ personal factors (Wen and Zhang (2017); Manan, 2020); and (3) the interaction between social factors and teacher agency (Heineke et al., 2015; Tao et al., 2020). Relatively more scholars focus on the relationship between educational reform and teacher agency in basic or preschool education (Hiver and Whitehead, 2018; Liu, 2020). Whereas most studies overly focus on the micro-level interactions within the tightly linked systems of LP, educational reform, and teacher agency, the integrity and hierarchy of the overall system have been neglected. Therefore, there is still considerable room for research in this field to balance the system’s hierarchy and micro-level interactions.
Language is a crucial carrier of ideology, and in the new LP context, agency has a special significance for foreign language teachers. Scholars have explained foreign language teacher agency mainly from three different perspectives: social cognitive perspective (Min, 2023; Manan, 2020), sociocultural perspective (Chen, 2021; Tao and Gao, 2021), and post-structuralist perspective (Wernicke, 2018; Lee, 2021). The social cognitive perspective views the mutual influence of personal factors and the environment in LP implementation, thus affecting human agency. It focuses on the psychological dimension of agency, including intentions, foresight, and self-reflection (Bandura, 2006, cited in Cong-Lem, 2021). However, this perspective on teacher agency research overlooks many important influencing factors such as external context, the role of departments within institutions, teacher emotions, and professional background. The sociocultural perspective emphasizes the intermediary process between individual development and institutions. It prioritizes the social and cultural background that shapes a person’s beliefs, values, and agency (Tao and Gao, 2021). Research conducted from this perspective covers many variables but lacks a systematic hierarchy, making it less conducive to examining teacher agency in language reform as a whole. The post-structuralist perspective sees agency as a discursive practice, considering it as an agentive action only when positioned to act (Tao and Gao, 2021). However, due to its deconstructive, relatively synchronic, dynamic, and open characteristics, this perspective, compared to the previous two, overlooks more personal and external factors.
Curriculum Ideologies and Politics (CIP)
Since the concept of “CIP” was proposed, followed by a wave of teaching reforms in Chinese universities, research on teaching has been carried out within the CIP setting. Substantial results have been obtained in both teaching and researching. These mainly include the following aspects: arguments for the necessity of CIP (Qiu, 2017; Yu, 2017); discussions on the feasibility and effectiveness of CIP, providing theoretical guidance for teachers’ teaching and research (Gao and Zong, 2017; Wen, 2021a; Xu, 2021a); integration of CIP into teaching, exploring teaching reform from multiple dimensions such as teachers and students (Wang, 2019; Wen, 2021b; Zhang and Du, 2021). Few scholars have explored teacher agency on the strategic level of LP and planning in the context of CIP. For example, Chen (2021) studied the factors influencing EFL teacher agency in CIP reform, involving activity subjects, community, rules, mediating tools, and roles, and investigated the agency exerted by teachers during the process. This research helps improve the effectiveness of CIP reform in practice and serves as a good model for theoretical research in this field. However, the research perspective is too micro, overlooking many environmental factors, and is prone to the pitfall of “seeing the trees but not the forest.”
Theoretical framework
The ecological perspective provides a comprehensive framework for examining the multifaceted interactions between teachers and their environment. This study integrates both spatial and temporal dimensions to explore the agency of EFL teachers in the context of CIP. By combining these dimensions, we aim to offer a holistic understanding of how various ecological factors influence teacher agency. This approach is creative in the context of CIP research, as previous studies have primarily focused on either spatial or temporal aspects in isolation.
The spatial dimension of the ecological perspective emphasizes the progressive and mutual adaptation between active, growing persons and the changing properties of their environments (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). For teachers, this theory posits that the interaction between context and teachers should be prioritized, and that teacher development should be placed within a more comprehensive and dynamic environment to reveal the complex ecological nature of the relationship between teachers and their environments (Gu and Gu, 2015). These environments can either be abstract ones, such as political, educational, and economic contexts, or concrete ones, such as family, school, college, and community (Tao, 2022), and they can be divided into four subsystems:
Microsystem: Refers to the setting in which a developing person experiences a variety of activities, roles, and interpersonal relationships (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 22).
Mesosystem: Consists of two or more interrelated settings that are actively participated in by developing individuals (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 25).
Macrosystem: Exists or may exist at the subculture or entire culture level, as well as any potential belief system or ideology (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 26).
Exosystem: Refers to one or more settings that do not involve developing individuals as active participants, but in which events occur that affect, or are affected by, what happens in the setting containing the developing individuals (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 25).
These four subsystems interact with each other and collectively influence human activities. Thus, the perspective emphasizes the spatial dimension of interaction between individuals and their environment, but it somewhat weakens the focus on the individuals’ agency in the temporal dimension. For example, Tao (2022) investigated the four-level environmental factors and personal factors affecting Russian teachers’ agency, which contributed to the interface studies on LP and teachers’ agency from an ecological perspective. However, the research overlooked the impact of the temporal dimension, thus leaving room for more research. Similarly, Zhang et al. (2023) explored the difficulties faced by senior high school EFL teachers in curriculum reform and their active and passive agency in four subsystems in southern China. The study provided valuable insights into how EFL teachers in developing regions exercised their agency. However, it was limited in terms of the teacher variety (only high school teachers from a certain area in China) and research method (interview only).
We argue that individual behavior depends on the environment they are in and their past experiences, which requires more attention to individuals as agents, including their intentions, beliefs, and identities (Billett, 2006). Priestley et al. (2015a), Xu and Zhang (2022), and Kang and Shen (2022) further developed the ecological perspective of teacher agency, proposing that teacher agency has spatial-temporal characteristics and can be supported or constrained by the environment. They described it as the result of the interaction of iterative, practical-evaluative, and projective systems.
Iterative System: The iterative system refers to the influence of teachers’ past experiences and professional histories on their current agency. It reflects how previous interactions with policies shape teachers’ beliefs and practices. Research has shown that teachers’ prior experiences can significantly influence their willingness to engage with new policies (Priestley et al., 2015a).
Practical-Evaluative System: This system involves the immediate work environment and the actions that affect teachers’ agency. It includes factors such as current teaching practices, policy implementation, and professional evaluations. The practical-evaluative system is crucial for understanding how teachers adapt to and implement new policies in real-time (Xu and Zhang, 2022).
Projective System: The projective system encompasses future-oriented planning and potential changes that may influence teachers’ agency. It includes factors such as career aspirations, professional development goals, and future policy expectations. The projective system helps to explain how teachers’ long-term goals shape their current actions and decisions (Kang and Shen, 2022).
These systems reflect the dynamic and evolving nature of teacher agency. However, they fundamentally still focus on the temporal dimension while underestimating the complexity of the spatial dimension. We argue that teacher agency emerges from a feedback loop between spatial contexts and temporal processes. For example, the mesosystem’s compliance demands (spatial) may conflict with teachers’ iterative experiences, while the projective system’s career goals (temporal) can motivate adaptive strategies within spatial constraints. Additionally, current research on teacher agency from an ecological perspective is mostly limited to teacher education and professional development (Xu and Long, 2020; Tao and Jiang, 2021), with a lack of research on its interface with LP. This paper integrates the spatial dimension (four-level systems) and the temporal dimension (three subsystems) from an ecological perspective to make an in-depth exploration into EFL teachers’ agency in Chinese universities in the context of CIP.
Research methods
Research questions
RQ1. What ecosystem does “CIP” provide for university EFL teachers’ agency in China?
RQ2. How do the systems within this ecosystem differ in their intensity of influence on EFL teachers’ agency?
Research design
According to the principle of convenience (Xu and Zhang, 2022), data were collected from four Chinese universities, anonymously labeled as A, B, C, and D. The selection was based on university type, level, and their commitment to implementing CIP. The research team, composed of scholars in LP, underwent comprehensive training on research methods, data collection, and analysis. A pilot study was conducted to refine the research design and ensure the validity and reliability of the data. As demonstrated in Table 1, A is a local application-oriented university devoted to cultivating application-oriented talents serving the local community. B is an application-oriented high-level university, adhering to the educational philosophy of cultivating talents through discipline development and mainly training talents rooted in the local area to serve the province. C primarily focuses on the cultivation of educational talents as a teacher-training university. D is a comprehensive university committed to cultivating all-round application-oriented talents. The daily teaching tasks of EFL teachers at universities are managed by their respective departments and faculties. Specifically, these are the Foreign Language Department and the Teaching and Research Section, as well as the School of Foreign Languages and various other departments. Since 2016, all the universities have actively responded to the national call by vigorously advocating and promoting CIP and utilizing various means and resources to train teachers.
Table 1. Information of universities.
Universities | Type | Levels | Level-2 institutionsa | Level-3 institutionsb | CIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A | Local application type | University | Department of Foreign Languages | Teaching and Research Office | Yes |
B | Application type | University | School of Foreign Languages | Department | Yes |
C | Normal type | Key university | School of Foreign Languages | Department | Yes |
D | Comprehensive type | Key university | School of Foreign Languages | Department | Yes |
a“Level-2 institutions” refer to the secondary management units within universities, such as schools or departments of foreign languages.
b“Level-3 institutions” refer to the specific units within these departments or schools where EFL teachers are affiliated, such as the Department of English or Teaching and Research Office.
Since the implementation of CIP in 2016, there have been considerable changes and development in these universities, indicating that the present study is of practical value. Data collection lasted from March 2022 to March 2023. Concerning the confidentiality of identity-related information, this study handled all such data anonymously, and before collecting data, extensive discussions were conducted with relevant participants, managers, and heads of institutions to ensure their informed consent and authorization.
Participants
Based on purposive sampling, 12 EFL teachers were selected from the four universities, with three teachers from each. They met specific criteria: (1) at least 5 years of teaching experience; (2) involvement in undergraduate English-related courses, especially the core courses; (3) diverse roles, including administrative responsibilities. The selection aimed to capture a comprehensive view of teacher agency, given the potential influence of different identities on understanding CIP. Specific information about the participants is shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Individual information of teachers.
Respondents | Gender | Age | Teaching age | Title | Degree | Major | Administrative participation or other part-time jobs | Universities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
T1 | Male | 50 | 14 | Associate professor | Master | English | / | A |
T2 | Male | 52 | 17 | Associate professor | Master | English | Director of the teaching and research office | A |
T3 | Male | 56 | 20 | Professor | Master | Business English | Department head | A |
T4 | Female | 40 | 17 | Associate professor | Master | English | Party branch secretary | B |
T5 | Male | 33 | 5 | Lecturer | Master | English | / | B |
T6 | Female | 34 | 8 | Lecturer | Master | Business English | / | B |
T7 | Female | 39 | 14 | Associate professor | PhD | English education | Teaching secretary | C |
T8 | Male | 45 | 22 | Associate professor | PhD | English education | / | C |
T9 | Male | 44 | 22 | Associate professor | Master | Translation | Class adviser | C |
T10 | Male | 59 | 35 | Professor | Master | English education | Dean | D |
T11 | Female | 41 | 21 | Associate professor | Master | English education | / | D |
T12 | Male | 52 | 27 | Associate professor | Master | Translation | Former vice president | D |
Data collection and analysis
We collected policies and documents related to CIP that have been released since 2016. They were classified and archived according to their issuing institutions and main content, which helped to understand the policy context. After purposive sampling, personal background questionnaires were distributed to the participants to understand their individual backgrounds, which “can provide more comprehensive data for later qualitative analysis and play a facilitating role” (Negueruela, 2003). Subsequently, we conducted semi-structured interviews, which can highlight teachers’ agency during the interviews, as “the interview plan is pre-prepared, but it is open enough to rearrange, deviate, extend, and further explore” (Cohen et al., 2002). This helps in collecting data on changes in teacher agency due to long-term teaching experience (Tao, 2022). The interview questions (Appendix 1) were designed around the spatial and temporal dimensions of the CIP reform ecosystem, aiming to explore the role of the new LP in enhancing EFL teacher agency. All interviews were recorded using a voice recorder, collecting 360 min of audio data from teacher interviews. To obtain crucial information from some teachers, follow-up interviews and validation interviews with their students were conducted, collecting an additional 340 min of audio data. To understand the changes in teaching methods brought about by teacher agency, we also observed a total of 20 sessions of the participants’ both online and offline classroom instruction. Additionally, we collected end-of-semester teaching reflections and summaries from some participants, totaling five documents. In the process, interviews with teachers served as the primary data source. Through in-depth interviews with them, we were able to obtain rich and detailed information about their experiences, perspectives, and insights. Teaching reflections, class observations, and student interviews, on the other hand, were employed to supplement and corroborate the responses obtained from the main interviews. These additional data collection methods helped to address any potential limitations or gaps in the interview data, which allow for data triangulation (Yang et al., 2013), thereby better ensuring the reliability of the data.
We carefully read CIP documents and conducted interpretive policy analysis. This analysis, which aimed to compare the intended meaning that policymakers aimed to convey in the documents with the meaning that related audience groups might obtain after reading, thus reveals the differences between the “written” text and the “constructed” text (Yanow, 2000) and the possible impact on audience groups. In our study, we used iFLYTEK voice transcription software to transcribe all the audio data into text. The researchers repeatedly proofread and made multiple revisions to the transcribed texts. Using NVivo 11 plus, we conducted thematic analysis on the texts, and after discussion, we achieved 100% consensus. All the data were initially in Chinese, and later the significant themes and content were translated into English.
Results and discussion
Spatial dimension
Exosystem
The exosystem encompasses external factors such as domestic and international politics, economy, culture, and history. While these factors cannot directly act on EFL teachers’ agency, they will indirectly influence or restrict its development (Tao, 2022). For instance, national responses to global issues, such as epidemics, can reinforce teachers’ commitment to CIP implementation. T11 noted that the national leadership’s response to epidemics was highly accepted among her students, which facilitated the implementation of the policy. Cultural security, a critical aspect of national security, is particularly emphasized in China’s new educational policies. T1 highlighted the importance of ideological values for the growth of the next generation, especially contemporary university students. His understanding of the national security situation and content facilitated his identification with CIP and indirectly promoted policy implementation. This perspective was shared by T9, who believed that EFL teachers should have national security awareness and strive to protect national interests during translation. Additionally, negative societal events can indirectly affect EFL teachers’ agency, as seen in T6’s comments on the impact of materialism and moral values:
Some corruption events and marital infidelity actually reflect the excessive addiction to the material world. So, I don’t agree that people develop with economic development. Given the quick economic development, the human soul sometimes lags behind and even runs in the opposite direction. My students and I will sometimes pay attention to the entertainment circle. The material side of the industry is indeed greatly satisfied, but look at how poor the morals of these entertainers are.
These observations highlight how societal issues have indirectly influenced teachers’ perspectives on CIP. In her Advanced English class, T11 used the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia to illustrate the importance of national stability. By comparing it with the safety and stability in China, she helped students understand that a strong country guarantees people’s happiness. This approach not only reinforces the participants’ recognition of the macrosystem’s policies but also serves as teaching material in itself, further emphasizing the role of the exosystem in shaping educational content and teacher agency.
Macrosystem
Policies related with CIP have explicit objectives, and their explicit prescriptive discourses contain strong values and ideological inclination, forming a macrosystem that constrains teacher agency. This system manifests two themes: value leading and unified education-talent training.
The Ministry of Education (MoE), as the main institution to implement this system, is responsible for formulating CIP policies, managing and evaluating policy implementation, and collecting relevant data. The relevant policy texts reflect the top-down discourse construction of power at the national level and explicitly stipulate values, leading direction, and content of talent training. Key policy documents, such as Guiding Outline for CIP Construction in Universities (2020), clearly point out that CIP construction should integrate values into knowledge imparting and ability training and help students establish an accurate worldview, outlooks on life, and values. These policies also specify the primary contents of value orientation in teachers’ practice, including strengthening students’ ideal and faith, patriotism, artistic appreciation, constitutional awareness, and moral cultivation, and systematically carrying out education on Chinese dream, rule of law, labor education, mental health, and excellent Chinese traditional culture.
CIP also encompass an ideological tendency towards unified education-talent training. The Guiding Outline for CIP Construction in Universities (2020) emphasizes building a high-level talent cultivation system by integrating the ideological and political work system and making substantial efforts in CIP construction to address the separation between professional education and Ideological and Political education. The Notice on Further Promotion of Construction of CIP in Universities (2021) issued by MoE also mentions that universities in different regions should accurately comprehend connotations of CIP construction, make integrated designs of discipline and profession construction, curriculum construction, classroom construction, and teachers’ teaching ability, and resolutely prevent “labeling” and “two sides” while constructing CIP. In the macrosystem, MoE has higher power and position than other organizations. The imperative and prescriptive discourses in the policy document further confirm the authority and mandatory nature of national ideological leadership (Tao, 2022), which was confirmed by most participants. T2 believed that the national CIP policies generally stipulated two aspects: first, teachers should have a correct stance; second, their teaching should be conducive to student growth. Similarly, T5 said, “CIP mainly reflects a situation where a political ideology and professional course are going in the same direction and working together to form a synergistic effect; the other is to cultivate moral character and apply the knowledge system to foster and enhance students’ morality.”
In a word, the macrosystem reflects the top-down discourse construction by policy-making institutions. It reflects non-equivalence compared with other institutions and teachers. However, participants responded with more understanding, responsiveness, and even support. This is because it still opens up space for teachers to implement teaching reform and innovation for CIP (Tao, 2022), which is conducive to promoting creative policy practice among teachers (Liu et al., 2020).
Mesosystem
In our study, the mesosystem encompasses universities, schools, or departments where EFL teachers work, along with their management systems, regulations, teacher performance assessment, and evaluation standards. This system is characterized by strong compliance on the national level during the implementation of the policy. As the head of the Foreign Language Department, T3 stated:
“Our department revised the course syllabus as required by higher authorities, with a focus on adding the contents about CIP. Each class is required to have CIP objectives listed separately.”
T11 confirmed this by noting that the university consistently issued documents to implement CIP and provided training, requiring full participation. This guidance has directed EFL teachers’ practices in CIP. However, some participants still have concerns and feel that guidance is lacking. T8 attempted to design Introduction to Linguistics by combining CIP but encountered difficulties due to the lack of theoretical knowledge, which could lead to lapses in teaching. He suggested that the Institute of Marxism, a professional department, should be responsible for establishing the theoretical system of CIP.
If the agents of mesosystem only cater to the superior documents rather than comprehending relevant contents and implementing the policy by cooperating with the department and the actual basis of teachers, it may hinder and suppress teachers’ agency (Liu et al., 2020). T10 said:
“The school and managers cannot blindly adopt non-consultative implementation of the policy and copy the superior document. Instead, teachers shall combine CIP with their actual teaching.”
He worried that if leaders or administrators used policies for personal achievements, it could be disastrous. T1 discussed his experience with CIP, noting that some students did not agree with his teaching model, leading to criticism from administrators, which left him feeling very discouraged. He believed that CIP required the cooperation of multiple departments and people to realize its objectives.
Participants expressed concerns and high expectations for institutions and administrators in the mesosystem, contrasting their responses to the former two systems. Traditional top-down policy discourse often ignores the bottom-up forces of agency, leading to confusion, mechanical task completion, or even perfunctory compliance among teachers (Priestley et al., 2015b), resulting in “collective aphasia” (Xu and Zhang, 2022). Additionally, mesosystem institutions directly impact teachers’ interests and professional development, having the most significant influence on their agency (Tao, 2022), making their stringent demands understandable. Therefore, before implementing policies, universities and schools must thoroughly understand the policies, consider their actual circumstances, and account for teachers’ autonomy and agency in policy execution.
Microsystem
The microsystem is at the core of the nested system (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). In the case of EFL teachers, it covers personal practices, family factors, and micro-communities closely related to their agency. Statistical findings show that the microsystem holds the most reference points compared to the other systems, with personal practices being particularly prominent. This echoes the findings of Liu et al. (2020): as classroom practitioners, teachers are central to policy practice. Influenced by the other three systems, participants not only implement policies in the micro-context but have also integrated them into their work and life. T4 mentioned that she incorporated both Chinese classics and Western literary masterpieces into her classes in a subtle manner, blending them into her teaching rather than imposing them, to ensure that students would not find it merely amusing. All participants generally support CIP to varying degrees, but most practice it randomly without planning. For example, T9 rarely included related content in the syllabus and lesson plans, instead improvising based on the classroom atmosphere. He attributed this to the lack of CIP modules in his teaching materials, leading to a lack of confidence among most teachers in CIP practices (Xu, 2021b). T11 believed this was because the school did not inspect or assess it. However, inadequate management and administration leading to a lack of follow-up systems can hinder policy practice and lower teacher professionalism (Islam, 2015).
During policy implementation, a minority of participants are concerned with the accuracy and validity of integrating ideological and political elements. Therefore, they attempt to build micro-communities to engage with students, listen to their voices, and improve their teaching. T11 found that today’s students were very patriotic and generally recognized the government’s leadership. T9 said that many students did not take Ideological and Political courses seriously, and his CIP practice helped improve this. In his translation class, he involved students in translating scientific texts, saying this could help to spread advanced technology and gradually form translation theories with Chinese characteristics.
Some participants sought to build peer communities to obtain a scaffold in policy practice. T11 teamed up with other interested and experienced colleagues to participate in a provincial teaching competition, specifically designing and repeatedly practicing CIP, with other members actively offering suggestions. She continuously improved, eventually winning first place. According to her, their outstanding CIP design was key to their success. Exercising collective agency helps achieve bottom-up policy implementation, and the interaction and scaffolding among the community facilitate the transformation of group agency into individual agency (Xu and Long, 2020). T9 hoped to obtain guidance from ideology and politics professionals to gain more confidence in his CIP. He suggested that CIP also required cooperation between university and secondary education teachers, as secondary schools prioritized exam scores, which placed excessive CIP implementation burdens on university teachers.
Temporal dimension
Iterative system
We agree that the impact of the temporal dimension on teacher agency permeates the spatial dimension. As defined in the theoretical framework, the iterative system consists of life histories and professional histories, significantly constraining teachers’ agency, which would shape their beliefs and values regarding the cultivation of English talents (Xu and Zhang, 2022). For example, T11’s belief that English majors should have CIP consciousness stems from professional choices. Many teachers’ prior training and experiences lead them to recognize the importance of ideological and political education in talent training, as endorsed by T4:
“As a teacher, I believe that priority should be given to moral education, and that the same holds true of talent cultivation where one must first grow as a person before we can cultivate their talents.”
Moreover, individual past experiences with teaching, policy-related training, or competitions also greatly influence agency. T9 said:
“The better the ideological quality of the students, the better their academic performance tends to be. I firmly believe in the traditional cultural recognition of moral education; only with good character can talents be properly cultivated.”
The rich teaching experiences facilitate T9 to recognize the policy. T11 participated in the University English CIP teaching competition organized by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP) in 2021, and their team won the first prize at the provincial level. This experience solidified her belief in the policy and prompted her to actively integrate CIP content in her teaching. FLTRP, as a third-party organization, plays a crucial role in providing a platform and resources for CIP implementation. However, holistic education in CIP is mostly led by official bodies, with competitions organized by FLTRP being nearly the only exception. Such competitions and the related incentive policies are too scarce (T11). Menzies (2024) pointed out that corporations and other third-party forces could influence LP by providing professional expertise. However, contests related to CIP sponsored by corporations without approval from educational authorities could not gain recognition from mesosystem institutions (e.g., universities) and could demotivate EFL teachers. Therefore, the implementation of CIP requires cooperation between enterprises and relevant educational authorities to establish partnerships for mutual and multiple benefits.
Projective system
In the theoretical framework, the projective system comprises factors related to future-oriented planning and potential changes that constrain teacher agency. In this system, factors such as individual teaching reforms, career planning, and policy implementation updates play a role. For instance, T11 suggested that currently, the content related to CIP was too limited in final exams, and planned to increase its presence and proportion from a policy perspective in future test designs. Students’ attitude toward teachers’ practice of CIP is easily ignored. T9 noted that students, as one of the main subjects of CIP, were most familiar with the teachers’ policy practices and suggested increasing related content in teacher evaluations to allow students to assess the effectiveness of their policy implementations. T5 noticed the recent popularity of MOOCs and planned to try a blended teaching model of online and offline methods, improving her teaching philosophy and the effectiveness of policy implementation through learning and exchanges. Xu and Zhang (2022) pointed out that language teachers’ obedience and adaptability to new policies did not favor the exercise of teacher agency; on the contrary, their exploration and innovation in implementing new policies were conducive to policy practice and personal development. Many participants hoped to receive more professional guidance in the future (e.g., T7, T9). Under equal conditions, teachers from schools that offer strong relational resources tend to exhibit higher agency (Priestley et al., 2015b). Universities should fully utilize various resources to create academic communities for CIP, promoting peer exchange and providing intellectual and relational resources for teachers. This is also an important part of policy development (Nordstrom and Zhang, 2023). T7 and T6 plan to integrate their teaching practices with applications for projects on CIP or participate in relevant competitions, which could guide their policy practice and enhance their teaching levels. We learned, through further interviews with students and the teachers, that both had been ranked top in teaching evaluations at their school for many years and had been frequently recognized as “Excellent Teachers”; they also had clear career plans, hoping to achieve promotion through years of accumulation, which would support their policy intentions, albeit possibly in contradictory ways (Priestley et al., 2015b); many teachers hoped that in the future, universities or schools would update policies or documents to enhance their motivation for policy implementation. For instance, T4 believed that policy preferences in merit awards and professional title reviews by schools or relevant institutions could truly enhance teachers’ enthusiasm for implementing CIP.
Practical-evaluative system
This system refers to the immediate work environment and actions affecting individual agency. Some participants secured further personal policy implementation through research projects. For example, T11 had two teaching and research projects related to CIP. Although the school did not mandate that teachers incorporate CIP content or objectives into syllabi and lesson plans, she voluntarily did so in the classroom. Student interviews reveal that T11’s classes are exceptionally popular, often praised for enriching knowledge that enlightens their thinking. T4 also remarked, “Once we undertake research projects, the pressure and motivation to complete these tasks exist.” Despite previously expressing a lack of professional guidance in policy implementation, many participants purposefully execute CIP in their specific courses. T11, who teaches “English Language Teaching Methodology” and “English-Chinese Translation,” considered the former highly specialized with no content on CIP in the textbooks, limited class hours, and a focus on specialized knowledge, thus rarely addressing CIP. However, in her “English-Chinese Translation” course, she naturally integrated Chinese traditional and exemplary foreign cultures into her teaching.
The majority of participants highly acknowledge CIP, which is influenced by their teaching observations and life experiences. T9 observed that students, often overly pampered, lacked social responsibility and were unaccustomed to caring about others and society, making the implementation of CIP crucial. Nonetheless, he noted a lack of sufficient importance attached to Ideological and Political courses and CIP among students, who anticipated expertise and skills, raising concerns about their acceptance or even reluctance to engage. Despite these challenges, most participants explore various methods to integrate CIP into professional teaching, including explicit, implicit, or hybrid approaches. However, the majority have not incorporated it into the course assessments.
Overall, within the spatial dimension, the mesosystem exerts the strongest influence on EFL teachers. The teachers’ agency is mainly manifested as compliance, restriction, or even resistance, and they also express high expectations towards this. In the temporary dimension, the practical-evaluative system plays a major role in influencing teacher agency, as evidenced by the preponderance of reference points in our qualitative data, followed by iterative and projective systems. The implementation of CIP by EFL teachers responds not only to administrative demands but also to existing trends. Today’s students generally possess strong patriotic and national confidence (T11); some teachers consider collaborating with class counselors, parents, and society to nurture students (T4). T9 suggested that CIP should be a task participated in by all staff and departments. Thus, the mediating role of the mesosystem within the practical-evaluative system is crucial in enabling teacher agency regarding CIP. It should be noted that temporal systems do not operate in isolation; rather, their interaction with the spatial dimensions forms a feedback loop that shapes agency: Spatial constraints (e.g., macrosystem’s ideological rigidity) are mediated by temporal resources like teachers’ professional networks (e.g., T11’s collaboration with peers); temporal motivations (e.g., T5’s blended teaching plan) are shaped by spatial opportunities (e.g., B university’s project funding). Yet, the proactive individual construction and environmental mediation capabilities of the microsystem should not be overlooked (Xu and Zhang, 2022). With clear recognition of their professional autonomy and supported in exercising their rights and agency, teachers play a significant role in policy implementation (Ng and Boucher-Yip, 2016), demonstrating the ecological characteristics of interaction between the spatial, temporal, and individual dimensions of teacher agency.
Finally, it is essential to contextualize this study within the existing literature to highlight its contributions and distinctions. Concretely, this study advances the literature on teacher agency in three critical ways. Firstly, unlike prior single-dimensional studies (e.g., Chen, 2021; Xu and Zhang, 2022), the spatial-temporal framework employed in this study bridges ecological systems and policy cycles, addressing the gap in holistic analyses of teacher agency. Secondly, the mixed-methods design (policy analysis+interviews+observations+reflective journals) captures both subjective experiences and objective contexts, overcoming limitations of survey-based (e.g., Liu et al., 2020) or document-centric approaches (e.g., Gao and Zong, 2017). Thirdly, it is identified that agency as a spectrum of negotiations reveals how teachers strategically adapt policies through micro-meso interactions (e.g., T11’s peer collaborations vs. T8’s syllabus conflicts). These comparisons underscore the novelty of our spatial-temporal framework and mixed-methods approach, which lay the foundation for the conclusions drawn below.
Conclusions
This study adopts an ecological perspective and explores, in terms of spatial and temporal dimensions, the factors that affect university EFL teachers’ agency in CIP-oriented LP. The multifaceted approach, including policy analysis, interviews, classroom observations, and reflective journals, has yielded a detailed examination of these conditioning factors and their manifestations.
In the spatial dimension, the macrosystem of the policy and national regulatory bodies sets boundaries for teacher agency. Yet, the data reveal a predominantly positive orientation in teacher agency. This is credited to the progressive space afforded by CIP, and significantly, the mediating role played by the exosystem. Despite being the main influencing factors, institutions in mesosystems also evoke concerns among teachers due to inadequate mediation. In the microsystem, a multitude of reference points indicates that participants implement CIP in their own unique ways. However, due to a general deficiency in policy-related knowledge and teaching experience, they are compelled to seek out and establish a scaffold.
In the temporal dimension, teachers’ past professional practices related to policy, along with other factors such as training and experience, invigorate teacher agency in CIP. Future-oriented CIP reforms in personal teaching and clearly defined career plans will shape the professional competence of teachers, who express hopes of receiving more support from the mesosystem. Presently, while there is a concerted effort among participants to integrate CIP, their agency remains constrained by various factors, including personal academic interests, course design, observational insights, life experiences, and student dynamics.
Combining both dimensions, the findings powerfully demonstrate that teacher agency is a dynamic, complex, and ongoing social and professional process. To enhance the implementation of CIP, universities and schools should play a more proactive role and actively seek partnerships with third-party forces (corporations or other organizations). These partnerships can include collaborative research projects on CIP implementation, joint development of teaching materials that incorporate ideological and political elements in an engaging way, and sponsorship of competitions that encourage teacher innovation in CIP. Educational authorities can establish clear guidelines and evaluation criteria for such partnerships to ensure quality and alignment with educational goals. Additionally, universities and schools could invite experts from third-party organizations to conduct training sessions or seminars for teachers, providing them with practical insights and strategies for integrating CIP into their teaching.
Admittedly, the 12 participants, though diverse in roles and institutions, may not fully represent China’s EFL teacher population. In the future, larger-scale studies are needed to validate our findings. Additionally, some contextual factors (e.g., regional policy variations) were not fully explored due to data constraints. Future work could adopt comparative case studies across universities.
This study contributes to global debates on education policy and teacher agency by contextualizing CIP within China’s unique socio-political landscape, offering insights transferable to other policy-driven reforms worldwide.
Acknowledgements
The work was supported by the Quality Engineering Project of Higher Education, Education Department of Anhui Province (2024dzxkc131 and 2024xjzlts066), Anhui Provincial Key Research Project of Humanities and Social Sciences in Universities (2024AH052836) and Bozhou University Quality Project (2024XJXM008) as well as the Graduate Ideological and Political Education and Teaching Reform Projects of the Graduate School of Southeast University (2022-3317002205D4 and 2024-5017002403).
Author contributions
Tingqun Zhang: methodology, data analysis, funding acquisition, writing—original draft. Yuhong Wang: data analysis, writing—review and editing. Zhanhao Jiang: conceptualization, methodology, funding acquisition, writing—review and editing.
Data availability
Data in this study are not publicly available in order to protect participants’ privacy. Data can be made available via written request to the corresponding author.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethical approval
All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study, including its methodology, participant recruitment, and data collection procedures, was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the School of Foreign Languages at Southeast University (SEUSFL20211230) on December 30, 2021.
Informed consent
In this study, informed consent was obtained electronically from all participants between February 1, 2022 and February 28, 2022. Before participation, the participants were informed about the objectives of the study, the confidentiality of their responses, no risk in the study, and their right to withdraw at any time without any consequences. All collected data were anonymized to protect participant identity and ensure confidentiality.
Supplementary information
The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05526-z.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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