Student Agency Reconsidered: Political Dimensions and Implications
Abstract
The definition of student agency has been approached from multiple angles in educational research, yet scholars do not yet fully comprehend this concept (Klemenčič, 2023). Given the lack of conceptual clarity, debate is ongoing regarding the methods educators should employ to cultivate agency in the classroom. One popular approach is rooted in the notion that educators should cultivate students’ beliefs about themselves and their capacities; in other words, teachers should encourage students’ motivation and self-directed behavior (Mercer, 2011) and their opportunity to engage with class instruction (Reeve & Tseng, 2011). In addition to explaining student agency through an emphasis on self-beliefs, studies on student agency have concentrated on methodologies for how teachers should nurture student agency through various pedagogical tools in the classroom, such as, for example, by involving students in their assessment (Rämö et al., 2022). Alternatively, other research studies focus on promoting collaborative practices where students and teachers jointly implement instructional methods and teachers empower students to take the lead in deciding how these methods are applied (Zeiser et al., 2018). In these accounts, the cultivation of agency is perceived as being confined to the space of the classroom, emerging solely through the immediate interactions between teachers and students, and not extending beyond this setting.
In this paper I argue that it is time to rethink the notion that student agency is cultivated solely through interactions between teachers and students within the confines of the classroom. That is because this perspective overlooks the fact that the cultivation of student agency, in addition to involving interaction between a teacher and a student, also involves the negotiation of power within the institutional space of the school beyond the classroom walls. The negotiation of power, which is a key aspect of agency, occurs not only between students and teachers but also between students and educational institutions. The complex political dimension of this negotiation of power between students, teachers, and institutions, warrants greater attention from educators who want to foster greater agency for students in higher education. To cultivate agency, educators need to consider not only the dimensions of agency that can be cultivated within the classroom, but also its political dimension, since student lives are inextricably embedded within the institutional spaces of school or university.
