Achieving Academic Agency in Teacher Education: An Ecological Analysis of Biography and Pedagogical Practice

This article applies an ecological framework to examine how one teacher educator’s biographical journey shapes her teaching practice at a South African university. The framework distinguishes three dimensions: iterational (past experience), projective (future aspiration), and practical-evaluative (present action). Using a qualitative single-case narrative analysis of a teaching portfolio combined with collaborative self-study, we examined how prior experience, future goals, and present constraints intersected to shape academic agency in teacher education. We show that the participant’s early experience as an untrained teacher in Kenya, and her background as a first-generation graduate from a disadvantaged community, were reframed as discursive assets for modelling resilience and building authentic connection with students. We also show how aligning technology with institutional structures enabled innovation in teaching classes exceeding 600 students. Findings demonstrate that agency is not an inherent capacity, but an ongoing achievement, emerging from the alignment of biography, institutional structure, and aspiration. As a single-case study, the findings are not intended to be generalised but offer analytic insight into how biography and context interact to shape agency in higher education. The study extends the ecological agency framework beyond school and vocational education to academics in higher education, with implications for teaching development and institutional practice.