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Background: Despite increasing support for models in physical education, ambiguity exists concerning the role of teachers in the implementation of models. Very generally, some scholarship seems to suggest that teachers should work as technicians and use models in an instrumental manner. Other scholarship suggests that teachers should use models in ways that are responsive to the contexts in which they are working. This suggestion positions teachers more as craftspeople. Ambiguity is problematic given that teachers have been identified as 'key players' when it comes to the implementation of models. How teachers are positioned in research may have a significant impact on further research and pedagogical practices. Purpose: This paper has two specific aims. First, we aim to provide a detailed map of how scholars have positioned teachers within physical education models literature. Second, we aim to provide a reinterpretation of our findings using Deweyan theory. Data production: The scoping review conducted here is based on the framework provided by Arksey and O'Malley [2005. "Scoping Studies: Towards a Methodological Framework." International Journal of Social Research Methodology 8 (1): 19-32]. It involved: (1) the development of a research question which was: in which ways does PE models literature position teachers? (2) the identification of potentially relevant literature through searches of the Web of Science, SPORT Discus and Google Scholar databases. The search terms used were: 'Physical education' AND 'Models-based practice;' OR; 'Pedagogical model;' OR; 'Instructional model;' OR; 'Curriculum model;' OR; 'Model;' OR; 'Teacher,' and literature needed to be published between 2010 and 2021 in English, (3) the selection of literature for the review. This occurred as an iterative process that involved going back and forth between the potentially relevant literature and our research question, (4) charting of the literature, done through inductive thematic analysis. This involved a close inspection of the included texts and the identification of recurring types of positioning in the corpus, and (5) a theoretical reinterpretation of teacher positioning achieved in models scholarship. Findings: In the physical education scholarship on pedagogical models, teachers are positioned as: (1) resistant to using models; (2) incapable of using models correctly; (3) mechanical reproducers of models; (4) struggling implementers of models; (5) needing models to change their ordinary practices; (6) capable of using models correctly with support; (7) adapters of models, and (8) collaborators with researchers when implementing models. Discussion: Three issues are raised for discussion. The first relates to the potential disempowerment of teachers achieved by models. The second relates to the relationship between teachers and researchers. The third relates to how models themselves are conceived. Conclusion: The paper is concluded with two general reflections that follow from the issues raised in the discussion.

During the education emergency, teachers’ leadership was indicative of their capacity to stay resilient and innovative in a changed educational environment. This study analyses their capacity to act as leaders and to promote equity in relation to the specific aspects of the French and Italian school systems. A pool of 16 interviews constitutes a unique case study of teacher leadership for equity under similar contextual conditions. Teacher leadership encountered very similar limitations in both countries. The education emergency per se represented an opportunity for some teachers to explore innovative equitable approaches, different from their actual practices and pedagogical cultures, as well as more professional dialogue. The margins for empowerment proved to be both of an instructional and of a transformative type. In particular, in systems with weak senior leadership and flat organisational structures, the margins for empowerment are at the classroom level. In such cases, a certain amount of collaboration and, quite often, hidden pedagogical innovation occurs in schools where school leadership and the wider organisational culture may offer some support. In fact, informal leadership is most often facilitated by certain conditions in terms of resources, school leadership and professional cultures.

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited This article addresses teacher autonomy in different models of educational governance using quantitative data from the OECD TALIS 2018 and qualitative data from a study on teacher autonomy conducted in Norway and Brazil. In this article, teacher autonomy is seen as a multidimensional concept referring to decision-making and control in relation to state governance. Further, the different degrees of implementation of accountability measures across countries determine the models of educational governance. The quantitative data reveals no clear pattern between teacher autonomy and models of educational governance. In general, teachers perceive that they have good control over teaching and planning at the classroom level. However, teachers report that they participate to a lesser degree in professional collaboration in schools, which could allow for collegial teacher autonomy. Teachers also report low perceived social value and policy influence, which may provide insight into professional teacher autonomy at the policy level. This article also shows the relevance of a detailed description of the country cases to gain a better understanding of the multiple dimensions of teacher autonomy.

Teacher autonomy (TA) in parallel with learner autonomy affects the standards of education. In this survey, the relationship between teachers’ autonomy was focused on along with second language teaching styles and personality traits. To respond to three research questions, the required data were gathered through convenience sampling by online distributing three sets of questionnaires, namely Pearson and Moomaw’s Teacher Autonomy Scale, Grasha’s Teaching Style Inventory, and Costa and McCrae’s NEO-Personality Inventory, which was responded by 156 EFL teachers, including both males and females. Then, SPSS 26 and AMOS 24 were used to analyze the data and the following results were obtained: (a) four items out of the five sub-constructs of a teaching style as well as four of the five sub-constructs of the personality traits were significant predictors of the teachers` autonomy; and (b) the mean score of the male teachers` overall autonomy was higher than that of the female teachers. Meanwhile, the findings are best suited for EFL academics who want to be more autonomous but are unaware of the influence it has on their teaching styles and personality traits.

Autonomy is a widely used concept in education policy and practice. The etymology of the concept derives from the Greek autonomos ‘having its own laws’ (Oxford Dictionaries, 2015). As such, the debates around the concept circulate around individuals’ or groups’ ability and capacity to self-rule, and the governance and/or constraints, which limit such a capacity. However, autonomy has also been widely contested in philosophy, and as suggested by Rawls (1980), for example, the concept has been defined in a variety of ways. In educational research too, the concept has been debated from varying viewpoints, as, for example, scholars engaged in education history (Smaller, 2015), education sociology and policy (Ball, 2006; Apple, 2002), legal issues (Berka, 2000) and pedagogy (Reinders, 2010; Little, 1995) have all problematised and defined its meaning in relation to education. When applied to educational practice, this nuanced and complex concept may indeed mean a variety of things. Take school-level autonomy as an example. Schools are complicated social systems in which multiple actors operate in different roles, and in which one's scope of action may affect the decision-making capacity of that of others. The question of who in a school community may possess autonomy (e.g. the teachers, the principals, or the learners) has fundamental implications for the ways in which the school operates. Also, the matters over which the members of the school community enjoy autonomy have important implications for what school autonomy means in practice. If we consider teacher autonomy more closely, it becomes apparent that teacher autonomy is often understood in terms of a dichotomous pairing of constraint vs. freedom (Wermke & Höstfält, 2014). It could be argued that teacher autonomy is always about constraint, and drawing from Gewirtz's and Cribb's (2009) work, we suggest focussing on the ways in which autonomy is constrained, as well as the matters over which autonomy is enjoyed and by whom. Therefore, teacher autonomy should be distinguished from other forms of autonomy, for example, school or local autonomy. Indeed, increased school autonomy, or local autonomy, as witnessed, for example, in relation to the Friskola movement in Sweden or Academies movement in England, does not automatically grant to teachers an increased scope of action (Kauko & Salokangas, 2015; Salokangas & Chapman, 2014; Wermke & Höstfält, 2014). Moreover, the teacher autonomy debate has been influenced by and reflects wider global education trends and international comparisons. Indeed, autonomy has been a central concept in education policy in Nordic countries (Frostenson, 2012) as well as elsewhere (Caldwell, 2008; Glatter, 2012). Recently, this could be seen, for example, in relation to ‘PISA envy’, and the ways in which Finland's consistent success in PISA has been explained, at least partly, through its highly educated and autonomous teaching workforce (Lopez, 2012; Stenlås, 2011). However, as the contributions in this issue highlight, international comparisons concerning teacher autonomy must remain sensitive to the national and local contexts in which teachers operate, and consider what autonomy actually means for teachers in those settings (Salokangas & Kauko, in press; Wermke, 2013). It is these complexities, inherent in the concept of autonomy, as well as its practical applications, that this edited collection was set to discuss and offer contributions to varied discourses concerning this important, widely debated, and contested concept. The special issue is divided into two sections. The first section presents three invited essays that offer theoretical perspectives on autonomy. The first two, by Gerald Dworkin and Evert Vedung, respectively, are not educational per se, but offer important conceptual contributions to the discussion. The third essay by Magnus Frostenson discusses the multidimensionality of the concept with a focus on education and teaching. The second section comprises empirical studies that discuss the concept of autonomy in different national and local contexts. The articles report on research conducted in Norway (Christina Elde Mølstadt & Sølvi Mausethagen), Germany (Martin Heinrich), Sweden (Sara Maria Sjödin, Andreas Bergh, Ulf Lundström) and England (Ruth McGinity). Special issue to Nordic Journal of Studies on Educational Policy