‘Making it possible’: the complex dynamics of university foreign language teacher agency for research in funding applications

Teacher agency for research, which refers to teachers’ decision-making and initiative acts in the context of academic engagement, plays a pivotal role for teacher learning, teacher research, and thus teachers’ professional development. Despite the burgeoning number of studies that have examined teachers’ research and publishing experiences, it is unclear how university teachers exercise their agency for research in funding applications. This study examines how foreign language teachers at a university in China practice agency in the application of the National Social Science Fund of China from a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory perspective. Narrative frames and semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data, and thematic analysis was adopted to elucidate the complexity and dynamics of teacher agency for research. Revealing that there are subsystems of teacher agency for research in funding applications, i.e., agency beliefs, agency practice, and agency emotions and that the developmental trajectories of their agency for research are situated and relational, the findings highlight the need to view teacher agency as complex systems and dynamic entities. This study not only offers a conceptual framework as to unravel teacher agency for research in funding applications but also provides a tentative pathway for teachers exercising agency in applying for external funding both in the context of China and beyond.