Teacher Identity and Agency in School Worlds: Beyond the All‐Good/All‐Bad Discourse on Accountability‐Explicit Curriculum Policies

Drawing on case studies of three elementary school teachers in a diverse urban school setting in Texas, the author explores the varied ways teachers actively read accountability‐related curriculum policies and then respond to these policies. Rooted in classroom observations and extensive teacher interviews, the author examines issues of teacher identity and identity formation as a base from which to explore teacher agency vis‐à‐vis accountability‐explicit curriculum policies. His analysis suggests that (1) individual teachers actively read and respond to locally conceived accountability‐explicit curriculum policies in varied, perhaps even unique, ways; (2) teacher identities are powerful means through which to understand these varied experiences with and responses to accountability‐explicit curriculum policies; and (3) current understandings of teacher agency vis‐à‐vis accountability‐explicit curriculum policies as merely a capacity to resist—as does much of the literature that is critical of accountability—obfuscates important issues of teacher quality and equity.