El contexto: elemento de análisis en la construcción de agencia profesional de docentes de inglés universitarios

Abstract

This article reports the results of a narrative research that collected the experiences of university teachers of English as a foreign language in their construction of professional agency on regional campuses. Although regional university campuses are part of the same higher education body in Costa Rica, they deconcentrate university work at its best locally. In this regard, there is a latent reality that identifies the persistence of equity gaps of a territorial nature. This study followed a qualitative approach through a narrative inquiry design under a life history type. Participants’ life histories were analysed and organized by following the three-dimensional, temporal-relational perspective on teacher agency offered by the ecological approach by Priestley, Biesta and Robinson (2015). Drawing on the premise that profesional agency is a temporal construction, past present and future are key dimensions in the search for understanding. Findings suggest that elements of the past gave teachers a broad repertoire of responses to engage and act and mainly included participants’ community and institutional belonging. The present dimension of participants reported vulnerability regrading resources accessibility and local policies. Finally, the projective dimension of professional agency rooted in a weighty sense of accountability for students’ and the community’s economic, social, and academic development in their local communities.