Beyond compliance: Professional curiosity and the cultivation of research‐informed practice

This paper examines the relationship between embedded practitioner enquiry and teacher professional agency in a special education school in the northeast of England. Drawing on a research practice partnership with the school, we develop the concept of ‘professional curiosity’, which we define as a sustained professional investigative orientation connecting externally produced research evidence and the localised demands of specific classroom contexts, and as a lens through which to understand how school cultures can foster genuinely research‐informed practice. Data were generated through semi‐structured interviews with eight members of teaching staff and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. We address two interrelated questions: how a culture of embedded classroom‐based research might shape professional curiosity, and how professional curiosity as a concept might then underpin research‐informed practice in a school environment. Findings suggest that professional curiosity develops through a processual shift from compliance to intrinsic inquiry, sustained by collaborative structures and ecological conditions that protect it from the pressures of performativity. Conceptually, we show how professional curiosity connects core beliefs about what it is to be a teacher, to professional expectations at an institutional level, and how this inquiring stance can become an important expression of teacher identity. The study contributes an original theorised construct to debates around teacher agency, practitioner enquiry and research‐informed practice, with implications for school leadership and professional development in contexts where accountability and compliance can take precedence over teachers' investigative orientation.