Episode Six: Dr. Dylan Scanlon “ ‘Doing' curriculum policy work and the role of teacher agency in that 'doing’ ”

My guest in this episode is Dr. Dylan Scanlon. Dylan is a member of staff in the Physical Education and Sports Science (PESS) department in the University of Limerick, he also works with the National Student Engagement Programme (NSTEP) and the National Forum. Dylan completed his PhD research in the PESS department in the University of Limerick under the supervision of Professor Ann Mac Phail and Dr. Antonio Calderon. His PhD followed a curriculum policy through different curriculum spaces, during which he worked with the Leaving Certificate Physical Education subject which he followed over two years by interviewing curriculum makers, professional development teachers and students as they enacted curriculum policy over that time. His interest in the Sociology of Education is twofold, he completed a Masters in the Sociology of Sport and Exercise with a focus on Physical Education and in his PhD research he focused on how Sociology of Education enables us to look at teachers as policy actors and the concept of policy enactment. In this episode Dylan discusses his PhD research and how teachers ‘do’ curriculum policy work and the role of teacher agency in this. He refers to Stephen Ball’s work on Policy enactment rather than focusing on curriculum policy ‘implementation’. Dylan refers to the concept of policy enactment as being a process which is not linear but that is ‘messy’ and complex and looks at multiple different people in multiple different spaces. He mentions how when we look at schools that we see them as a policy enactment context built on a myriad of different interrelated contexts which gives a snapshot of how complex schools actually are and how teachers are policy actors within this complexity. He refers to Ball’s eight actor roles or policy hats within which teachers ‘wear’ different hats within the space they find themselves in as they operate from different perspectives of enacting and ‘doing’ the policy. Dylan also refers to Mark Priestly’s work on teacher agency and figurational sociology to understand how teachers ‘do curriculum policy work and how important communities of learners are in supporting teachers in their ‘doing’. He talks about the concept of ‘agency’ as being an ill-defined complex concept and connected to this he discusses the concept of ‘teacher agency’. He offers a view of ‘agency’ informed by Mark Priestly’s work as something achieved in either the past or to be achieved in the future as a result of someone’s efforts, the resources available to them, the contextual and structural factors in a particular situation but that agency is in fact enacted in the present. Dylan believes that we need to move away from a discourse that positions a huge amount of belief on the agency of a teacher, something a teacher holds as such and that we never actually fully ‘achieve’ agency but rather that we are constantly working on it and enacting it as interdependent actors which either enables or constrains the achievement of agency. He focuses on the achieving of agency rather than the achievement of agency. He stresses the importance of communities of learners and quotes from his PhD supervisor, Professor Ann Mac Phail who says that “ we need to stop working in isolation and work with, and learn from, each other” (MacPhail, 2020, p 16). He talks about how if we try and do something on our own it can be challenging and difficult but how when we work together within communities of learners we can work towards achieving agency together within a community of learners of different stakeholders and how powerful this is. We also chat about how Covid has impacted on teacher agency and on curriculum policy work, if it been adversely affected and if there have there been gains during Covid. Another must listen episode that looks at the much mentioned sociological concepts of ‘agency’, ‘teacher agency’ and ‘curriculum policy’ and how this translates into real curriculum policy enactment in real time by real teachers. If you are a practising teacher, student teacher, school leader, policy maker, CPD provider, teacher educator or just interested in education and curriculum policy this episode offers a refreshing view on a non-linear, complex, relational process driven approach which allows for achieving of agency by teachers and challenges us to look differently at the concept of teachers being ‘agents of change’ within what can be a rigid education system. Tune in and listen for more.