Teacher Agency for Social Justice in Rural China: A Study in the Field of Critical Applied Linguistics

虽然教师越来越多地被要求作为“变革的代理人”，以实现更大的正义，教师如何制定和发展这种以正义为导向的机构还不清楚。借鉴教师代理的生态模型（Priestley，Biesta和罗宾逊，2015），一些初步的研究在普通教育（例如，Pantic，2017）探索了不同类型的正义导向的代理行为，并确定了这些行为的各种启示和约束。拟议的研究将在三个方面扩展这一新兴的文学线：-它将通过调查这种机构的发展，随着时间的推移，扩大以前的研究制定以公正为导向的教师机构。- 它将侧重于英语教师的代理行为，因为他们可能面临其他与正义有关的问题（例如，英语在全球资本主义生产中的地位）。调查将在中国农村进行，尽管对多重不平等的定量统计数据有很好的记录（中国国家统计局，2019年），但人们对这些不平等的谈判几乎没有经验证据。研究问题：中国农村地区的英语教师如何为社会公正发挥作用？- 教师对社会正义的认知能力和制约因素是什么？- 教师促进社会正义的机构如何随着时间的推移而演变？方法将采用定性案例研究设计。五到八名来自中国农村的英语教师将被调查，每个人构成一个单独的案例。这些教师将在一个致力于支持中国农村正义教师的非政府组织的帮助下招聘。将采用批判性沟通方法（CCM）（Go'mez、Puigvert和Flecha，2011年），因为它具有同时研究和促进社会正义的潜力。CCM的一个关键特征是“平等对话”，研究人员积极贡献学术知识，并与参与者共同构建具有变革潜力的知识。在本研究中，这些对话将被嵌入：a）沟通数据收集一个沟通的生活故事访谈将被进行，以构建参与者的过去的传记，现在的正义导向的做法和中介因素，以及未来的愿景的批判性反思叙述。将采用照片驱动（Wang，1999年）和视频驱动（Erickson，2011年）访谈，参与者将使用照片和视频记录与他们日常制定社会正义机构有关的行为和人工制品。研究者和参与者将在一个在线微信群中共同构建视觉数据的解释，为期一学年。每两周一次的交流焦点小组将与参与者在线讨论他们在日常参与微信群中出现的关键问题。B）沟通数据分析数据分析将遵循溯因法（Tavory和Timmermans，2014）。参与者将参与数据解释，以确保调查结果的变革潜力并建立可信度。（c）咨询委员会会议将成立一个由非政府组织的研究人员和非学术研究受益人组成的咨询委员会。在整个研究过程中，将举行会议，讨论研究目的，调整数据收集工具，解释数据，并确定传播研究结果和公众参与的适当方式。意义拟议研究的潜在贡献包括但不限于：-产生见解，可以建立和完善教师代理社会正义的新兴理论知识-为未来的CCM研究铺平道路-创造民主空间，教师参与者可以发展代理能力，减少中国农村的不平等-产生有用的知识，可以改变非政府组织的政策和实践

Although teachers are increasingly being called upon to act as 'agents of change' towards greater justice, there is little clarity about how teachers enact and develop such justice-oriented agency. Drawing upon the ecological model of teacher agency (Priestley, Biesta and Robinson, 2015), some initial research in general education (e.g., Pantic, 2017) has explored different types of justice-oriented agentic actions and identified various affordances and constraints of these actions. The proposed study will extend this emerging line of literature in three ways:-It will extend previous research on the enactment of justice-oriented teacher agency by investigating the development of such agency over time. -It will focus on the agentic actions of EFL teachers, as they may face additional justice-related issues (e.g., the status of English in global capitalist production). -It will be conducted in rural China where, though quantitative statistics of multiple inequalities are well-documented (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2019), little empirical evidence on people's negotiations with these inequalities exists. Research questions -How do EFL teachers enact agency for social justice in rural China? -What are the teacher-perceived affordances and constraints of agency for social justice? -How does teacher agency for social justice evolve over time? Methodology A qualitative case study design will be employed. Five to eight EFL teachers from rural China will be investigated, each constituting an individual case. These teachers will be recruited with the help of a non-governmental organisation committed to supporting justice-oriented teachers in rural China. Critical communicative methodology (CCM) (Go'mez, Puigvert and Flecha, 2011) will be adopted because of its potential for simultaneously researching and promoting social justice. A key feature of CCM is 'egalitarian dialogues', where the researcher actively contributes academic knowledge and co-constructs knowledge that has transformative potential with participants. In this study these dialogues will be embedded in:a) Communicative data collectionOne communicative life story interview will be conducted to construct critical reflective narratives of participants' past biographies, present justice-oriented practices and mediating factors, and future visions. Photo-driven (Wang, 1999) and video-driven (Erickson, 2011) interviews will be used, whereby participants will use photography and videos to record behaviours and artefacts related to their daily enactment of agency for social justice. The researcher and participants will co-construct interpretations of visual data in an online WeChat group over an academic year.Bi-weekly communicative focus groups will be held with participants online to discuss key issues emerging from their daily participation in the Wechat group. b) Communicative data analysis Data analysis will follow an abductive approach (Tavory and Timmermans, 2014). Participants will be involved in data interpretation to ensure the transformative potential of findings and to establish trustworthiness. c) Advisory Committee meetingsAn Advisory Committee consisting of the researcher and non-academic research beneficiaries from the NGO will be formed. Meetings will be held throughout the research process to discuss the research purposes, adjust data collection tools, interpret data, and identify appropriate ways of findings dissemination and public engagement. Significance The potential contributions of the proposed research include but are not limited to: -generating insights that may build and refine emerging theoretical knowledge on teacher agency for social justice -paving the road for future CCM studies -creating democratic spaces where teacher participants may develop agentic capacity for reducing inequalities in rural China-producing usable knowledge which may transform policy and practices in the NGO