Thoughtful adaptive teaching: A qualitative study of the experiences of Irish language teachers in Irish medium secondary schools during curricular reform

In the context of ongoing educational reform, understanding how teachers navigate curricular change is essential for ensuring effective and inclusive classroom practice. Teacher agency is central to successful educational enactment, particularly as teachers need to thoughtfully adapt their practices to meet evolving curricula and diverse student needs. Thoughtful adaptivity refers to a teacher’s agentic capacity to deliberately adjust practice in response to curricular, contextual, and student needs, through ongoing metacognition and reflective evaluation. Thoughtful adaptivity explicitly emphasises teachers’ reflective consideration of the effectiveness of their methods, the willingness to revise routines when they prove insufficient, and the deliberate alignment of instructional choices with both student needs and broader educational goals. Teacher agency and professional disposition are central to the effective enactment of curricular reform and to enabling thoughtful adaptivity during periods of change. When teachers have a clear awareness of their beliefs, a guiding professional vision, a strong sense of belonging, and the capacity to imagine identities for themselves and their students, they are better positioned to exercise agency and respond adaptively to classroom challenges. Through the enactment of agency, teachers interpret, negotiate, and adapt curricular reform in ways that support responsive and effective teaching practices. However, this agency depends on the alignment between teachers’ beliefs, vision, identity and the cultural context in which they work. This alignment is particularly significant in contexts where culture and teaching are closely intertwined, such as in Irish-medium educational settings. This doctoral study examines teacher enactment of curricular reform in Irish Medium settings at lower secondary level in Ireland. By focusing on the macro and micro levels of curriculum-making, the study explores how Irish language teachers used their agency to negotiate and enact changes introduced with the Junior Cycle curriculum. Specifically, this research explores how teachers' beliefs, vision, sense of belonging and identity were shaped by the reform process, and the associated implications for thoughtful adaptive expertise and responsiveness to diverse student needs. Employing a broad qualitative approach situated within the interpretive paradigm, data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Seventeen teachers from thirteen Irish-medium secondary schools located outside the Gaeltacht participated in this study, which explored their adaptive characteristics in the context of curricular change. Data were analysed using hybrid thematic analysis which included both deductive and inductive approaches. This analysis revealed the varied strategies employed by teachers as they negotiated a new language specification while responding to the increasingly diverse student population. The curricular reform and associated enactment led to a noticeable decline in teacher confidence and agency, particularly affecting their thoughtful adaptivity and their ability to support all the learners within their classrooms. Many teachers grappled with this uncertainty, drawing on their beliefs, vision, sense of belonging, and professional identity as guiding principles for enactment during this period. Despite a strong commitment to student language proficiency and a passion for the Irish language, concerns about performativity and the ambiguity surrounding state examinations hindered teachers' ability to tailor pedagogical strategies effectively. However, the study found that teachers with strong professional and language identities, and a strong sense of belonging within their educational contexts, reported higher levels of thoughtful adaptivity and agentic enactment. These teachers regained confidence more quickly and were less affected by curricular reform, demonstrating greater pedagogical resilience. The findings underscore the importance of beliefs, vision, belonging, and identity in shaping teachers' agency and capacity for thoughtful adaptivity. This study contributes to the literature on adaptive expertise in teaching by highlighting the significant interplay of intrinsic and extrinsic factors in fostering thoughtful adaptivity during curricular reform in Irish-medium settings. By examining teachers’ perspectives during a period of significant curricular reform, the research provides insights into the characteristics and support systems that foster thoughtfully adaptive teaching within these unique educational contexts. Ultimately, thoughtful adaptive teachers, grounded in their beliefs, vision, belonging and identity, are better positioned to use their agency to navigate the complexities of modern educational environments and enact responsive teaching practices. As such, this research highlights the importance of supporting teachers' professional identities and sense of community, particularly during times of educational reform, in order to sustain and strengthen thoughtful adaptivity. The findings have implications for policy and professional development initiatives aimed at supporting teacher agency, confidence, and adaptive expertise, ultimately benefiting student outcomes in reformed educational landscapes.

Publisher

University of Galway

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CC BY-NC-ND

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University of Galway Theses (PhD Theses)