Teacher agency toward queer language pedagogy: perspectives from queer ELT teachers in Thailand

Despite the growing body of research on queer pedagogy, studies examining how queer language teachers exercise agency in their everyday pedagogical practices remain limited. This qualitative, exploratory study investigates teacher agency among queer language teachers in Thailand, using data from 17 queer teachers collected through open-ended surveys and follow-up semi-structured interviews with 10 participants. The findings indicate that teacher agency is deeply entangled with queer teachers’ identities and the cultural, institutional, and educational contexts in which they are situated. Participants described English language classrooms as relatively flexible spaces that afford opportunities to negotiate identity, challenge normative assumptions, and promote inclusive, emotionally supportive learning environments. This perceived freedom enabled teachers to exercise agency through pedagogical choices, relational practices, and subtle forms of resistance. We argue that understanding queer language teachers’ agency requires examining their identity perceptions in the classroom from societal, institutional, and personal perspectives, with implications for future research.