| Summary: | Teacher Agency (TA) research has gained traction in the last few decades, but Higher Education Teacher Agency (HETA) research is scarce in the Global South. This study aimed to explore how university English teachers in Sri Lanka navigate workplace affordances and restraints in their agency enactment. This study utilized a narrative case study design and data from semi-structured conversation- like interviews with 6 participants. A narratively- driven thematic analysis using an ecological approach to agency facilitated the study.
Several affordances and restraints in the examined university context were identified and the findings reflected the dialectical nature of affordances and restraints that moved along a continuum. When exploring the three dimensions of the ecological framework, the practical evaluative dimension, (here and now’) emerged as the most dominant dimension that influenced participants’ agency enactment. University English teachers navigated workplace affordances and restraints in a dynamic way and enacted agency as an immediate response to emergent situations in their workplace instead of drawing on their histories. The study also observed a lack of critical reflection in participants’ agency enactment.
The dominant role played by the workplace environment in participants’ agency enactment contrasted with previous empirical studies that highlighted the interplay between all three ecological dimensions. The study provides useful insights into institutional policies and practices that foster or restrain agency enactment in university contexts and presents avenues for future research.
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