Abstract
There is an increasing volume of research on PhDs’ lived experiences or educational motivations. However, the transformation process of teachers into doctoral students is underexplored. Moreover, their prior lived experience should also be examined. To address these, this research aims to transcend the snapshotting of the lived experience of PhD students. By providing a panoramic view, ranging from their early childhood to the beginning of their PhD research, the paper explores the authors’ agency and their interaction with their surrounding environment. Through a collaborative autoethnography, the authors employed the concept of agency and a cultural-historical lens to examine their aspirations in China and Iran, two distinct contexts. The authors have metaphorically likened their journey of life and personal growth towards the start of a PhD to that of a seed transforming into a sturdy sprout. This metaphor progresses through four stages: from cultivating the land, planting the seed, and germinating to sprouting. The authors highlight that they are in a dialectical relationship with the surrounding environment and demonstrate agency in their life quests and pursuits.
With the growing attention paid to the enlarging number of international PhDs (Li, 2024), there is a burgeoning scholarship on their lived experiences. Lived experience concerns not only people’s experiences but also how they live through and respond to those experiences (Boylorn, 2008). Current studies include students’ motivations for starting a PhD degree and the impact of motivation on their study (Kowalczuk-Walędziak et al., 2017; Sverdlik & Hall, 2020), and their learning experiences and well-being (Mousa & Samara, 2022; Patel, 2023; Rangarajan & Daneshfar, 2022; Sverdlik et al., 2018). However, these studies on doctoral students’ motivational and mental experiences only provide fragmented insights and fail to address how the transition into doctoral education happens. Moreover, the process of teachers transitioning into doctoral students remains underexplored.
Within current studies, the concept of agency has gained considerable attention, particularly in the past four years (from 2020 to 2023), as evidenced by a notable surge in published records on employing it as a theoretical tool and citing this concept. Current studies include student agency manifested in the construction of their identity (i.e., Wilkin et al., 2023), research progression (i.e., Inouye, 2023), socialization, community and belonging (i.e., Yazan et al., 2023), and career development (i.e., Le, 2023). Synthesizing current literature, Sun and Wu (2024) argue that prior lived experience is a crucial prerequisite for the agency to function productively. Therefore, they call for further research to explore the intricacies of students’ unique life courses to elucidate how individuals are influenced by their past experiences.
Given that this article focuses on the transformation of former teachers into PhDs, it is essential to investigate their prior lived experience, that is, what happens in their lives and how they live through and respond to those experiences (Boylorn, 2008), before becoming teachers and later doctoral students. The sociocultural environment could provide an essential lens for perceiving and analysing lived experiences in connection to certain results. In addition, the discussion of agency in relation to the sociocultural environment in the process of lived experiences of teachers towards becoming PhD students is of our interest. Avoiding the binary view towards agency and the sociocultural environment has been advocated (Sewell, 1992; Sun & Wu, 2024); however, there is a scarcity of empirical evidence in this particular subject, specifically regarding how extensive lived experiences influence one to become a teacher and then a doctoral student. This calls for a panoramic view of their lived experiences to unpack and map out the nuances of the trajectory of their journeys and career choices.
To fill these gaps, we examine our lived experiences of becoming teachers and doctoral students in the form of a collaborative autoethnography. The theoretical lenses of agency and cultural-historical theory (CHT) are employed to elucidate how we continued pursuing knowledge and our aspirations in China and Iran, two distinct sociocultural contexts. We have presented narratives of our lives, from early childhood to becoming international PhD students, at an Australian university. The divergent contexts of the two teachers situated, differentiated and sometimes resembling lived experiences will help to reveal the multi-faceted issues of the teachers’ transformation into researchers. To this end, we are raising the research question: how have our personal journeys, starting from our childhood to adulthood, shaped our pursuit of educational research?
Theoretical framework
To examine the extensive experiences of two teachers in their pursuit of PhD studies, we posit a hybrid theoretical lens of agency and cultural-historical theory (CHT). Human agency is a highly contested concept that has been widely discussed in the areas of sociology, psychology and philosophy (Archer, 2000; Bandura, 2001; Foucault, 1982; Giddens, 1984). It has also been used to investigate teachers’ professional development (Mu, 2014; Yang & Markauskaite, 2023). Though being widely researched, there is a lack of a unanimous definition of it. Drawing on the three elements of agency initiated by Emirbayer and Mische (1998) and Mu’s (2014) definition, this study defining the agency of the two narrators entails the purposeful and professional actions within which actors can fight for their aims, plan and enact actions, and promote their development and a sought-after future.
From Emirbayer and Mische (1998), agency is defined as: a temporally embedded process of social engagement, informed by the past (in its ‘iterational’ or habitual aspect) but also oriented toward the future (as a ‘projective’ capacity to imagine alternative possibilities) and toward the present (as a ‘practical-evaluative’ capacity to contextualize past habits and future projects within the contingencies of the moment) (p. 962)
In line with Emirbayer and Mische’s (1998) three elements, Mu’s (2014) defines teacher agency as purposeful, professional action within which teachers can fight for their professional rights, coordinate relationships, plan and enact professional actions and promote professional development. Coordinating relationships is not included in the tentative definition since it is not the focus of the study.
However, there is a challenge in unpacking agency, as Stetsenko (2020) puts it: how to unpack human agency without falling into the pitfalls of the conventional approach, which assumes agency as the autonomous, solipsistic achievement of isolated individuals who are either ‘free-will’ subjects or, on the other side of the spectrum, puppets of powerful forces working on the will of others (p. 5)
To avoid falling into these pitfalls, both individuality and uniqueness, as well as sociocultural factors such as latitude or constraint, are considered and examined in this research. Therefore, we conceptualize agency within a non-binary, dialectical framework that pays due weight to agency’s social underpinnings. This is in line with what Stetsenko (2020) called for, examining individuals’ agency from a sociocultural perspective.
Consequently, we posit a sociocultural perspective from CHT to amend the potential perception towards understanding agency as a human-specific concept. According to CHT, the social environment is the source of human development (Vygotsky, 1998) and humans are presented with sociocultural experiences through interactions with their surroundings (Daneshfar & Moharami, 2018). CHT also emphasizes the role of the individual as the central figure in these interactions (Vygotsky, 1998). Thus, the notions of agency and sociocultural perspective are conducive to examining our life trajectories.
Collaborative autoethnography as a method
In this paper, we collaborated on retelling personal experiences throughout our lives on the pathway to becoming international PhD students at an Australian university. We, as researchers with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, share two compelling narratives about our experiences transitioning from being students to becoming teachers and embarking on a journey as doctoral researchers in a foreign country. We have employed the method of collaborative autoethnography (CAE), which has allowed us to tell, analyse and interpret our stories. Chang et al. (2016) conceptualized CAE as a qualitative method that combines collaboration, autobiography and ethnography. They emphasized that this method enables researchers to collectively share their stories, identify commonalities and differences, and engage in a process of meaning-making within their sociocultural contexts (Chang et al., 2016). This method has been widely used in educational research, such as examining doctoral students’ lived experiences (Rangarajan & Daneshfar, 2022) and researching early childhood education (Hopwood et al., 2022).
As researchers of this paper, we, two current PhD students, employed CAE to retell our stories in China and Hong Kong, and Iran, respectively, leading up to the commencement of our doctoral degrees. Through these stories, we illuminated our personal journeys, with a particular emphasis on the educational aspects, encompassing our educational experiences within the respective sociocultural contexts. The methodological approach together with the theoretical underpinnings enabled us to more specifically focus on the concept of agency in our stories in connection with the sociocultural interrelations.
To achieve this objective, we implemented a series of steps in our paper, drawing inspiration from existing literature (Hradsky et al., 2022; Pretorius & Cutri, 2019; Rangarajan & Daneshfar, 2022). We began by individually generating preliminary data and then collaboratively discussing it during meetings, guided by four main questions.
(1) How did our childhood experiences influence our pursuit of education (knowledge)?
(2) How did we translate the acquisition of knowledge into becoming teachers?
(3) How did the pursuit of knowledge lead to a shift from teaching to research?
(4) How did our personal journeys shape our pursuit of educational research?
We utilized four primary data types to address these guiding questions, as described below:
(1) our personal recollection of memories that influenced our decision to pursue academic research;
(2) archival materials such as diaries and photographs that documented relevant memories;
(3) our discussions during collaborative meetings;
(4) our collective self-reflections on our journeys following the meetings.
Following writing the stories based on the hints and questions, we started meaning-making and generating themes through individual and collaborative refractions on our stories. During our collaborative coding, we metaphorically likened our journeys of life and personal growth towards the start of a PhD to the transformation of ‘a seed into a sturdy sprout’. Metaphors are used in CAE research, such as ‘funambulism’, or walking a tightrope, for describing the academic and professional experiences in academia (West et al., 2021) and the metaphor of ‘the room’ to convey the significance of immersing oneself in research (Aberasturi-Apraiz et al., 2020). In relation to our metaphor, the codes are divided into four distinct stages of growing a sprout: from cultivating the land, planting the seed, germinating to sprouting. Finally, considering this metaphor, our discussion of the themes had four sections.
Narratives
Gloria’s narrative
To the ups and downs, to the back and forth, and to the morphing better me who spares no effort in chasing the aspiration and purpose of life.
From my childhood wonders to university life
I was born and raised in Xi’an, Shaanxi, a province that serves as a nexus for learning and research in northern China. My earliest memories are folk tales in the kids’ books my father purchased for me: Cinderella teaches me the power of optimism and faith, The Ugly Duckling tells me it is ugliness, solitude and inferiority that pave the way to enlightenment, while The Little Mermaid shows me the courage and sacrifice to actualize your dream. In addition to the inspiring folk tales, my childhood is about my grandma’s constant sharing of how education changed her life. Another person who influenced me substantially is my grandfather, a former principal and later an officer in the Education Bureau, who actively participated in school reform in the region. I learned this from the visits of his former students, who reminisced about the days gone by and the ways in which he had influenced their lives. These occurrences instilled in me a belief in the power of education and knowledge, together with a desire to pursue and realize my dream and life’s purpose.
My time spent at school was infused with the delight of enquiry and the sense of accomplishment. I’ll never forget the day I had to speak in front of my entire school as a Primary 1 student representative. A touch of a chill pervaded the air that day, but the sun was out for my speech. I was a firm believer that we should dream big and make positive changes for the community. My childlike wonder and self-assurance to solve problems have served me well throughout my life. There are more challenges during secondary education. My father always told me, ‘As long as you try your best, failure is as glorious as success.’ Whenever I was having a hard time, this quote inspired me to keep making efforts.
As a result of my upbringing, I developed into a confident college student who was never afraid to attempt something new. Among the highlights of my life was my time spent as a volunteer teacher in a rural community for three months. Having witnessed educational disparities firsthand and witnessed students’ optimism and perseverance in the face of adversity, I began to ponder the necessity of addressing the issue of educational disparity between rural and urban areas. However, I was at a loss as to what I could do to improve this issue as an undergraduate.
From a sojourner to a local teacher
Following the completion of my bachelor’s degree, I relocated to Hong Kong, a coastal metropolis that represents a conduit to where I could experience the intersection between the East and the West (Chiu & Siu, 2022). At Hong Kong Polytechnic University, I earned a Master of Arts in Translation and Interpretation. At the same time, I was struck by the allure of quality education, which continues to place a premium on student agency, thinking critically and independent learning. The pedagogy and curriculum of the Master of Arts in Translating and Interpreting programme remain considerably distinct from those in mainland China. Ever since then, I’ve been drawn to being a teacher and exploring more effective strategies for facilitating language learning in the classroom.
I did not immediately enter the teaching profession after college because it is so competitive in Hong Kong. I was fortunate enough to acquire a temporary teaching position at the tertiary level, despite lacking both the teaching experience and teacher qualification that are often prerequisites for working as a local teacher in Hong Kong. Even though it was a 26-hour teaching week and a four-hour travel each way, I accepted the offer gladly. I frequently slept and missed my stop on the train on the way home from work. As a result of enrolling school dropouts and students with disabilities, teachers had to devote a significant amount of class time to handling disciplinary issues. Quickly after, I was offered a position as a teaching associate at a Band 1 school. Yet, the salary they offered was only one-half that of the university, so I could hardly make ends meet, let alone pay for tuition in the teacher training programme. My parents’ love, encouragement and financial support got me through the challenging patch.
For two years, I was a teaching assistant at the EMI Band 1 school. This allowed me to become acquainted with the local English curriculum. Meanwhile, I began my teacher training. I worked full-time while pursuing two years’ teacher training (Postgraduate Diploma in Education). Till now, I still vividly remember rushing to the university after work for lessons from six p.m. to nine p.m., staying up late at night with my classmates to accomplish our assignments and discussing the group project on the weekends. However, few teaching opportunities as a teaching assistant in secondary school let me down. Some days I left school feeling exhausted, unfulfilled and sceptical about whether I had made the choice by seeking to be a teacher. My parents’ unconditional love and generous financial support were the pillars around which I could build my journey. They believed that I would be a good teacher in a competitive situation, but I wasn’t sure. A number of close friends and fellow teaching assistants were always there for one another. In my deepest self-doubt, a message I learned from a pastor changed my mind: God assigned different missions for his people. We should be content with the assigned roles and grateful to serve him in the current roles.
In such a state of mind, I continued with the role. I was soon offered a position as an English teacher at another local school, for which I had longed for a very long time. The subsequent four years were spent as a Chinese Medium of Instruction (CMI) high school English teacher. The stories in this school will be told in the following section.
Questing for change
My years at the CMI school were a time of my burgeoning aspiration for educational reform. As a result of observing the struggles of students in their pursuit of knowledge, I had a perpetually inquisitive and impassioned desire to effect school-wide change. Though in the last year such zeal was dwindling as a result of insurmountable institutional hurdles, such a pursuit for change was shifting from enhancement in my school to school reform in the region.
During my early years as a teacher at the CMI school, I was privileged enough to obtain the position of Senior Form Coordinator. In addition to instructing three elite classes (Forms 4, 5 and 6), I worked to promote student learning in my school by developing a school-based curriculum for the English panel and promoting effective classroom practices among the panel. Meanwhile, I was the English programme coordinator and functioned as the liaison between the school and the Education Bureau for organizing English activities. In this process, I witnessed students struggling with their learning, as well as the dilemma my colleagues and school administrators experienced in balancing students’ diverse needs with the benchmark of the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE). This experience is not uncommon. Students from CMI schools reported a worse level of confidence and academic competence in the English language and adapted less well to university studies than students from English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) schools (Evans & Morrison, 2017). In an attempt to address the learning gaps between EMI and CMI students, I conversed with principals, English teachers from other schools and professors in education. I was especially fortunate to have the principal’s and the panel chairperson’s trust. By entrusting me with important responsibilities like serving as a school representative at district-wide meetings, coordinating English programmes at my school and representing teachers in the government’s external review of schools, they have given me priceless opportunities to grow as a professional and contribute to the improvement of my school’s English programme. This ‘journey for change’ lasted three years. Slowly but surely, I came to be aware of the need to change at the policy level, to reduce educational disparities, considering the wide variety of school contexts.
With a dire heart to change, despite the systematic barriers, such as malalignment between assessment and curriculum and lack of resources, I was sick. I made various attempts in two years, yet change still did not happen beyond my classroom. There was not enough manpower to facilitate the improvement of English language teaching in the school. By chance, I had an opportunity to teach as a lecturer at a university in my hometown. Considering my health condition, more research opportunities in higher education and potentially pursuing my PhD in the top university in Xi’an, I made the decision to go back to Xi’an.
In the nine years that I’ve lived in Hong Kong, it has evolved into a second home that brings me joys and sorrows, friends and students and, most importantly, my dream — to enhance English education and address the learning disparities. I am so attached to this land where the younger me keeps chasing my dreams. I didn’t realize how attached I was to this place until I left.
Morphing painfully into a research student
Uncertainty is life. My plan to conduct my PhD did not happen as planned with my relocation to Xi’an, which was supposed to be the final decision. It took me another three years, full of challenges and struggles. It was my inherent passion towards educational research and my family’s selfless support that led me to believe I could make it happen, sooner or later.
I intended to be the doctoral student of a renowned professor in Xi’an, my hometown. However, after meeting him, I abandoned the plan because it was not a good match. After learning more about higher education in Xi’an, I then decided to study overseas instead. In educational research, it seems that my city continues to exhibit a comparative disadvantage and lags behind universities overseas. Furthermore, I anticipate encountering challenges in acclimating to the local academic milieu.
Teaching and research in the university is a different experience. I remembered during the outbreak of COVID-19, I had to hustle to the shopping mall with three layers of masks to purchase a new desktop when my previous one broke down, yet IT facilities were not provided by the university. I also successfully received a grant from the municipal government on investigating the provincial school system. Concurrently, I had challenges in acclimating to the local institute’s work dynamics. I conversed with my parents about my struggle and frustration. My father told me, ‘Do not consider your mother and me while making decisions, and we will support you if you decide to return to Hong Kong.’ And he recounted how my grandfather, at a young age, supported school reform in rural schools. I was of a similar age and remained dedicated to both my students and research endeavours in Hong Kong. So, I made the decision to return to Hong Kong.
Later, flying back to Hong Kong and being quarantined for two weeks, I started job hunting. Soon, the Education University of Hong Kong offered me a position as a senior research assistant, which was originally a postdoctoral position. Working as a research fellow under stringent supervision and with a strong artificial intelligence team was a rewarding experience that provided me with really significant research experience. After a year, I chose to begin my PhD part-time and self-funded at a university in Australia. Due to COVID-19 border restrictions, the only option was to pursue my PhD study in Hong Kong. At that time, with a comparatively considerable salary, I had to some extent conquered the concern over financial pressure while pursuing the PhD. In retrospect, it was due to the tremendous attempts, innocence and earnestness towards the aspiration that I could start the research journey as a PhD student.
Samran’s quest
Education through a child’s eyes
On his first day of school, the crying child didn’t want to stay in the classroom because he was afraid his mother would leave him there by himself. The teacher, who remained his favourite, promised to give him a pack of colouring pencils if he would stay. The boy calmed down a little bit hearing this and stayed, whether willingly or unwillingly. That special moment marked a dramatic event in my childhood. It remains one of my brightest memories from first grade, or perhaps from my entire school experience.
My father’s level of education was higher compared to that of the people in the neighbourhood or our relatives. He was strict with our schooling and tried a lot to help us. His perseverance in our education and his encouragement remained and shaped part of the external motivation for me to like school. Besides Dad’s inspiration, there were simple school achievements, such as being the first student in the rankings, and awards that helped me like school. Considering all these external motives, I think that going to school was not deeply ingrained in my heart back then. In other words, agency and passion for education were always lost.
My father’s efforts were not enough to help me structure this agency. The strongest obstacles to this were the socio-cultural and economic issues people in my hometown were dealing with. I was born and grew up in Piranshahr, a small town located in the very corner of Iran. The fame of the city was and still is due to the main military bases, which became more important during the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88). People were too busy with the war and later with post-war traumas. Piranshahr was stuck in a miserable situation culturally and educationally, which was a consequence of financial issues. Most residents constantly travelled in search of seasonal jobs in the central cities of Iran for survival. Many students had to leave before the end of the school year and were back a couple of weeks or months after school commencement. Some students were helping with the family’s living expenses if they were lucky enough to stay in the town. I reckon that education was looked upon mostly as a compulsory matter rather than a goal for building up a better life and future. Perhaps that perception of education led my relatives to incessantly mock my father’s cautiousness towards our schooling. All of this might have made it tough for me to grasp and appreciate the true value of education, ultimately hindering my ability to love school.
Stepping into the school, that was a place almost every student despised. The classrooms were dirty, small and crowded. There was always a fight between kids in a corner when the principal or teachers were not around. Force and obligation were there for everything. Every subject was taught with force and intimidation. Looking back, I see school as a battlefield rather than a place for true education. This situation started in primary school and just slightly improved during my school years. But that was not a big change. On the other hand, governmental and political effects made the school situation worse. Strict Islamic rules were recently introduced to every aspect of life by the new Islamic Republic regime. These rules caused and still cause a strong indoctrination issue in the country, influencing the school system. Indoctrination in education can prevent students from critically assessing their beliefs, which conflict with human liberty (Armstrong, 2022), and is a major obstacle in the way of social autonomy, freedom and agency (Garnett, 2015). As I reflect on my life, it was like being stuck in an unbreakable bubble — the bubble of an imprisoned mind.
My exposure to books was limited to school and religious texts. The latter, fuelled by the indoctrination system, comprised stories about ancient saints that frequently evoked fear instead of nurturing creativity. These tales were filled with extreme religious perspectives on human actions, aiming to promote virtuous behaviour by depicting the terrifying consequences of wrongdoing. The illustrations and descriptions of Hell and the end for wrongdoers were particularly ominous. Astonishingly, even teachers responsible for religious education encouraged innocent children to read and engage with this material. It seemed their intention was to instil fear in us rather than encourage critical thinking. Under this radical regime, the education system prioritized the indoctrination of young minds rather than fostering intellectual growth. I graduated from high school with average marks, carrying the lasting impacts of such indoctrination.
Becoming a teacher: a springboard to my belief in education
In Iran, Grade 12 students compete for university entrance positions through an exam. Despite my preparation, I didn’t qualify for engineering studies, which was my interest. According to Iranian law, males who don’t pursue higher education must complete two years of mandatory military service. Shortly after failing the exam, I found myself enrolling in this service. However, luck was on my side, as I managed to substitute this duty with a primary teaching programme in rural areas facing a teacher shortage. Initially, my goal was to avoid wasting two years in the military. Surprisingly, this decision turned out to be incredibly wise. While I had always shown a slight interest in teaching, I never imagined it would blossom into a true passion during those two service years.
Then my two-year journey as a primary teacher started in a village almost 50 kilometres from my hometown, located in the mountains of Kurdistan, with the freshest air anyone could imagine. Teaching in the classroom was not an easy job at the beginning; all the training that we had included a month of intensive teaching courses. Recalling memories of almost 20 years ago, most of the joy of those two years happened in the classroom. That interest helped me learn to teach in the classroom. Classroom experience and teaching innocent kids fascinated me. I was enjoying teaching students, often working 2–3 hours extra each day. Teaching for me became a full-time dedication to helping kids with literacy and numeracy.
This teaching period worked like a prism that refracted my perception of education. This short time was enough to bring about a significant change in my appreciation of education and knowledge. Education, over which I had no agency during my school years, took my attention. Since then, my goal has been to value education. At that time, I was very unsatisfied with my education. I felt like a failure, realizing the time wasted in school. This prompted me to re-evaluate my education and prioritize my own learning.
My discontent coincided with a major turning point. A colleague asked me to join him in reading an English text one afternoon. This brought me back to the third or fourth grade, when I first became interested in English words written on European clothing sold in thrift stores. Despite not pursuing my interests as a child, I embarked on studying English when I turned 20, as a teacher. It felt as if I had discovered my path, choosing to pursue higher education and eventually becoming an English teacher. One year after finishing my temporary teaching career, I achieved success in the university entrance exam. This marked the beginning of my bachelor’s journey in English language and literature.
Navigating the roller coaster: finding my passion’s path
Studying English broadened my perspective of the world, exposing me to a broader reality. The doors to my previously closed world opened. I began to observe outside of the shell, which was limited to Iran and my hometown. Driven by a sense of guilt for my past educational shortcomings, I found motivation to seize the learning opportunities offered by books and lectures at the university. My burning desire for personal growth fuelled my pursuit of a bachelor’s degree, as I yearned to satisfy my thirst for self-improvement.
Knowing that English had opened up new horizons for me, sharing this language with others soon became my top priority. That is to say, if I were to teach English, I could open the opportunity to my fellow citizens. After finishing my bachelor’s degree, I jumped at the chance to teach English in public and private institutions in my hometown. In addition to my part-time teaching, I was eager to advance my education. Always by my side was a desire to learn more and share what I had learned with others.
Soon, I became a certified English teacher and began my master’s in English language teaching. This degree was very different from my undergraduate experience. The way the degree was presented made me less interested in pursuing it. I realized I was dissatisfied with the higher education offered in my country, and I even reflected that my bachelor’s degree experience was not particularly satisfying. It was my personal connection to books and knowledge, not the system, that made me so happy during my bachelor’s. However, the positive aspect of my master’s was my growing interest in research. I enjoyed working on my small project and found a strong correlation between my thesis and classroom practice. This research played a significant role in my decision to continue my connection to education. It was time for me to put into practice what I had discovered during my classroom research project.
In the meantime, there was a demand for additional elementary school teachers due to recent reforms to the school system. Despite my background in English language instruction, I was forced to take a primary teaching position. That completely floored me. I had spent approximately six years attending universities to learn and teach English. The new primary teacher position did not involve my expertise and passion. But they left no other option, and I spent approximately three years in what I call an exile from what I desired to teach. My goal was to help students unlock the world and gain a fresh perspective through English. Disconnection from the community and a lack of sense of belonging were the primary outcomes. It was at this point that I began to lose enthusiasm for teaching in the Iranian educational system.
During my exile, I managed to stay connected to my beloved career by teaching English in private language schools. Though the teaching hours were limited, I could at least dedicate myself to my passion. Time passed, and they called me back to teach English at public schools. I thought it would be a pleasure to assist school students in learning English. However, it appeared that I was unhappy as a result of my altered perception of education in Iran. I thought that I had become a part of the Islamic regime’s main ideology’s system of indoctrination. I felt resentment towards myself when I recalled my school years. ‘They imprisoned my mind, and now I am ruining innocent kids’ wishes.’
All of the unfavourable thoughts and feelings I had towards both myself and the educational system in my country created big internal challenges for me. To perceive myself as useful, I sought a practical solution. As I mentioned earlier, I found a connection to my master’s thesis by applying it in the classroom. This brief research project was extremely valuable to me as a child. Finally, it worked as a way to rescue myself. It lit a strong inner drive in me to think wider and see beyond my country.
Knowledge could and must be pursued in another context when Iranian higher education could not satisfy me anymore. Driven by a desire to seek new challenges and immerse myself in a different culture and language, I aimed for a goal that seemed daunting due to political and financial constraints. However, fuelled by my insatiable curiosity and longing for knowledge, I embarked on a quest that separated me from my loved ones. This quest ultimately brought pride to my family, as I was offered a PhD abroad.
Discussion
In this section, we refer to our stories based on common themes and analyse the stories with a brief discussion. We do this by taking a cultural-historical perspective and employing the concept of agency to unpack the nuance of our life journeys. As discussed earlier, the educational and career development of the two narrators has been metaphorically depicted as the growth of a tree including four stages: cultivating the land, planting the seed, germinating and sprouting. We are aware that the four stages are never linear or isolated; however, describing our lived struggles in these four stages still effectively categorizes key aspects of our journey and the changes we made to become doctoral students. The iterative processes will be addressed in the discussion below.
Cultivating the land: childhood wonders; parents’ consistent support
Cultivating the land as the first theme is connected to our early age bases which have shaped or made the first foundations for the sense of agency towards the pursuit of education and life goals. For Gloria, childhood readings of the folk tales on courage and optimism empowered her, as she put it: ‘My earliest memories are folk tales in the kids’ books my father purchased for me: Cinderella teaches me the power of optimism and faith, The Ugly Duckling tells me it is ugliness, solitude and inferiority that pave the way to enlightenment, while The Little Mermaid shows me the courage and sacrifice to actualize your dream.’ In addition, influence from her grandparents, who are a teacher valuing education and a school leader being engaged in school reforms, instilled in her a belief in the power of education, the power of change, positivity and a desire to pursue her dreams. These also lead her to take purposeful actions for her own development in school and university years, as she ‘developed into a confident college student who was never afraid to attempt something new’.
In contrast, for Samran, a conflict between resistance to the school system’s indoctrination and an inspiring teacher (which could be a sample of similar teachers) and supportive parent served as the soil for the growth of his sense of agency in pursuing knowledge. These opposites were throughout Samran’s school years, although, as he reflected, the pursuit for knowledge was ‘not deeply rooted in my heart’ in his narration. In his case, at a later stage as a primary teacher, the reflection on the indoctrination in knowledge acquisition in schools in Iran facilitated his quest for self-growth and serving others by providing a better education.
Intriguingly, the two narratives grew up in environments that were benign (in Gloria’s case) and with some constraints (Samran’s case), respectively; however, they both exhibited a thirst for knowledge. Overtly, Gloria demonstrated her agency in having the assurance and taking purposeful actions for her self-development as a student. Samran, in contrast, fought against the deliberate school system with the help of certain teachers and parents and prevailed, demonstrating his agency in the process. The aforementioned process, characterized by several challenges, does not follow a linear trajectory.
Planting the seed: witnessing educational disparity; reflection towards loss
Following the land cultivation, planting the seed refers to the narrators’ experiences as novice teachers and their reflections on education. Gloria’s experience as a volunteer in the rural area made her aware of the disparity in the educational system and the urgency for change, though she did not know the ‘how’ at that time. This awareness was the tiny seed of hope and desire for equitable education that stimulated her to pursue a teaching career at a later stage, then constantly make attempts to enhance education for her students, and lastly, research school reforms. In the same vein, Samran, as a novice teacher, started valuing education and considering teaching as ‘a full-time dedication to helping kids’ with their education. Samran’s experience as an early teacher talks about regretting his lost time during his school years, which drove him to pursue knowledge in an unprecedentedly proactive manner. Here, reflection over the loss serves as the tiny seed buried in the land for his future endeavour, his PhD.
In both cases, it was our hopes and desires for the future, whether it was for educational equity or pursuing being a more knowledgeable person, that drove us to make more practical decisions and take action accordingly. Specifically, longing for educational equity (Gloria) and knowledge (Samran) connects to the proactive element of agency (Emirbayer & Mische,1998), and working hard to acquire knowledge (Samran) concerns the practical-evaluative element of agency.
Germinating: aspirations for enhancing education; opening opportunity for others
Germinating as a theme in our lifelong stories is the burgeoning process of our pursuit in connection to education, when both of us took deliberate and professional action to pursue our goals, foster our professional development and plan for the future. Respectively, it refers to Gloria’s unceasing attempts to enhance educational equity and Samran’s pursuit of knowledge to open opportunities for his fellow citizens through education. In such a process, Gloria’s agency was facilitated and demonstrated with the benign learning environment and workplace, and especially with the trust of the school leaders. For Samran, his aim concerning valuing education shifted from a completely personal aim to others’ achievement. This was facilitated by Samran’s observation of the educational deficiencies of the context in which he grew up. The process started with the shift of his attitude towards education, and then proactive actions in gaining education, subsequently, imparting knowledge enthusiastically to his students and, lastly, aiming for others’ achievement.
Germination involves two stages in Gloria’s life journey: firstly, studying and living in Hong Kong became the first stimulator to germinate the seed for research, and secondly, teaching and reforming as a teacher represents her burgeoning aspirations for enhancing education. The learning experience motivated her to become an English teacher to provide an enjoyable and meaningful learning experience for students. Following that, as a teacher, she worked to promote student learning in the school by developing a school-based curriculum and effective classroom practices, and enticing more students to participate in English programmes. Such a ‘journey of transformation’ demonstrated her agency in enhancing education by utilizing the resources and making tremendous efforts to provide quality education for her students. Here, the institutional factors are initially benign for her endeavours, since she was facilitated to change within her classroom and share the good practice with other teachers. Yet there were barriers, such as a lack of teacher readiness and resources, that made it difficult for her to change on the school level.
In a different manner, germination for Samran denotes his introduction to English during his undergraduate studies, which coincided with a shift from personal to external objectives. This exposure not only served as a means for Samran’s personal aspirations and educational advancement but also, as he said, to ‘open the opportunity to my fellow citizens’. Consequently, the transfer of his experiences to his fellow students became increasingly important as he approached the end of his undergraduate studies. Once again, the focus shifted from purely personal goals to the achievements of others. Samran’s passion for education intensified within the supportive learning environment. Notably, the English language played a pivotal role for Samran, serving as both a tool and a bridge to connect with the global world. He defines the English language as a tool to break the jail of indoctrination, and noted that it opened ‘the doors to my previously closed world’. Here, Samran’s story points to his agency after his personal encounter with a larger sociocultural context through the possible means of language. He took action to fight for his aims and envision a new education blueprint for his fellow citizens.
Sprouting: dissatisfaction, reflection and agency
The final theme, sprouting, signifies the culmination of the PhD study arising from a dialectical relationship between our aspirations and the disappointing realities we encounter and the actions and efforts we made to actualize the goal of commencing doctoral studies. In Gloria’s case, since there is little room to reform within the school, she was aware that the essential change may be approached from a policy perspective. To conduct research, she moved from Hong Kong to mainland China, back to Hong Kong, then to Melbourne to fulfil her plan to conduct a policy study. Disappointing practice in Hong Kong schools did not defeat her eventually, but was a golden opportunity for her to strengthen her resilience and demonstrate her agency in attempting to change the status quo. Undeniably, the course of the voyage is one of several twists and turns, as we indicated earlier that the process is far from being linear.
For Samran, sprouting was the outcome of his discontent with the curriculum, as well as the necessity to teach outside his area of expertise. Samran’s story reflected a flawed education system that caused him to start losing his motivation for bringing change through teaching in Iran. Consequently, Samran actively looked to change the situation by gaining more opportunities for self-growth through pursuing a PhD in an English-speaking country. Further, Samran perceived himself as a tool of an indoctrination system: ‘They imprisoned my mind, and now I am ruining innocent kids’ wishes.’ While these feelings may seem to be negative, on the contrary, this demonstrated his agency inactively searching for possible redemption in pursuing research in education in another country.
Homogeneously, we both experienced the constraint in the school system, yet successfully broke through the barrier with our own agency, embedded with our hopes towards an envisioned future, and proactively taking actions to make change happen in our careers. In this process, when our life aims, concerning reform and enhancement in education, or redemption and self-growth, are crystallized, we make constant efforts and take proactive actions to actualize them. Within the non-linear progression, we actively exhibited a positive attitude by consistently endeavouring to overcome obstacles rather than succumbing to setbacks.
Conclusion
This paper examines our lived experiences, as the authors of this paper, from early childhood to starting our research degree of PhD, through the perspective of human agency and CHT. We have been constantly empowered and constrained by our surroundings. In a dialectical interaction with the environment, we grew to be research students with clear goals in life.
This paper contributes to the public’s understanding of the life of teachers through the cases from China (subsequently Hong Kong) and Iran and their life quests towards becoming PhD students in education. Moreover, the paper helps to enrich understanding towards the long-standing debates between agency and sociocultural environment. The data show that agency is essential in our life quests. Our stories seem to demonstrate that humans are positive rather than negative agents passively receiving the influence of the surrounding environment. Just as the title indicates, it is the agency and inherent positivity that facilitates a tiny seed growing into a sturdy sprout, in the face of either sunshine or storms.