it's been a wonderful life

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‘‘It’s been a wonderful life’’: accounts of the interplay

between structure and agency by ‘‘good’’ universityteachers

Brenda Leibowitz • Susan van Schalkwyk • John Ruiters •

Jean Farmer • Hanelie Adendorff

Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract This study is set in an era and a context in which extrinsic forms of motivation

and reward are offered by higher education institutions as a means to enhance teaching,

and in which teaching is effectively undervalued in relation to research. The study focuses

on the role of agency in professional development and demonstrates the relevance of

Margaret Archer’s description of the interplay between structure and agency for under-

standing how academics enhance their teaching in research-intensive universities. Ten

semi-structured interviews were conducted by a team of academic development advisors inorder to obtain accounts of teaching academics of their becoming good teachers, in their

own words. An analysis of the transcripts of the interviews with the lecturers demonstrates

how dimensions such as biography, current contextual influences, individuals’ dispositions

and steps taken to enhance teaching interact in a spiralling manner to generate a sense of

self-fulfilment and agency. Intrinsic, rather than extrinsic motivation, is shown to be sig-

nificant in propelling individuals towards action. The article concludes with an assessment

of the implications of the interplay between structure and agency, the need for an enabling

environment with a key role for intrinsic motivation for professional development strate-

gies, in research-intensive universities.

Keywords Agency Á Structure Á Teaching Á Professional development Á South Africa

Introduction

‘‘It’s been a wonderful life, and when I die, I think I hope to have the satisfaction of

knowing that perhaps a lot of young people have enjoyed my subject. What more can

I ask for?’’ (Percival)

Percival is a Professor of Microbiology, and although formally retired, he still teaches on amedical undergraduate programme at a research-intensive university in South Africa. Two

years in a row he has been nominated as the lecturer who made the most significant impact

B. Leibowitz (&) Á S. van Schalkwyk Á J. Ruiters Á J. Farmer Á H. Adendorff

Centre for Teaching and Learning, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

e-mail: [email protected]

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DOI 10.1007/s10734-011-9445-8



on one of the university’s top thirty-first-year students’ academic achievement. Percival’s

statement provides a glimpse of his personal biography, and displays a variety of emotions

such as joy or satisfaction, and values such as commitment to the academic discipline or to

the students. These emotions and values play an important role in what is increasingly

referred to as the ‘‘interplay’’ between structure and agency (Archer 2000, 2007) withregard to society and individual mobility, and with regard to education (Crawford 2010;

Luckett and Luckett 2009; and Wilmott 1999). An understanding of agency and its

workings can provide guidance for the professional development of academics in their

teaching role (Kahn 2009) and the facilitation of change in higher education (Clegg 2005).

We believe the question of agency and how it may flourish in relation to contexts which

might be enabling or constraining, depending on the socio-political and material conditions

which influence them, is significant in the light of the increasing trend towards awards,

grants and incentives for good teaching and teaching enhancement. In this article we

explore the interplay between structure and agency via an analysis of the accounts of

becoming good teachers by a group of teaching academics deemed successful by first-year

students at a South African university. It is our intention that some of the implications of

this analysis will offer insights for the professional development of academics in their

teaching role, specifically in a research-intensive institution. In so doing we hope to

contribute to the ongoing international debates around the nature of the ‘professional

learning’ (Brew 2004, p. 5), of university teachers.

Setting and motivation for the study

The University at which the research was conducted is what is referred to in South Africa

as a ‘‘historically advantaged’’ or ‘‘historically white’’ institution. The University admits

amongst the highest academic achieving students in the country, but remains socially and

racially exclusive. A decade ago the University signalled the intention to become a

research-intensive institution and has succeeded in making strong progress in this direc-

tion. During this same period, it has made contradictory policy level statements with regard

to the role of teaching. For example several years ago it was announced at the University

Senate that salary improvements would be made to academics who were internationally

ranked researchers. Since then, however, a drive to see the three academic roles of

research, teaching and community interaction as integrated has been the focus of a numberof institutional discussions. Yet while there is an intention to recognise teaching, and while

there are faculties or departments where teaching is overtly valued, this is not uniform

across the campus. The tension that exists between research and teaching, typically at

research-intensive universities, is an international phenomenon that has been well-docu-

mented in the literature (Chalmers 2011; Austin and Chang 1995). Much of this work

highlights the impact that this tension has on the professional learning of academics and the

extent to which they may elect to seek to enhance their teaching practice (Herman and

Cilliers 2008). The University has a Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL), which

actively promotes the status of teaching and provides opportunities for academics to

enhance their professional development. The study was undertaken to support the work of

this Centre.

Given the social complexities informing the institution in which this study was con-

ducted, and indeed, the complexities bedevilling higher education internationally, we thus

take the position that good teaching and the debates that inform what good teaching is and

should be, cannot be discussed in a purely technicist and a-social manner. The account of

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written in the literature on professional development about the significance of the material

aspects such as funding and resources, possibly because in the environments giving rise to

this literature, from the developed world, these material elements are taken for granted.

One would have to refer to a larger body of literature on social justice (see for example

Fraser 2003, on the complementarity of distribution and recognition) in order to stress theimportance of the material aspects of context. In countries such as South Africa where

funding for higher education is lower than the international norms (National Advisory

Council on Innovation 2006) and where there are great material disparities between

institutions (Council on Higher Education 2006), this aspect of context cannot be ignored.

Even if we assume that good teaching can be developed and is not purely innate, the

question still arises, why do some people become good teachers and others do not? Why

are some teachers more motivated to enhance their teaching than others? What role does

personal biography play, what role does the specific context play, and what role does

individual agency play in relation to structure? The literature on good teaching provides

many examples of these dimensions of good teaching, but does not provide an explanatory

framework about how it all fits together. The answer to this series of questions can be

found, we maintain, in the work of sociologist Margaret Archer, on the interplay between

what she refers to as ‘structure’ and ‘agency. In the next section we describe those aspects

of her account of the interplay of structure and agency that are useful for understanding

being and becoming good lecturers in higher education.

The interplay of structure and agency

Archer locates her ideas on the interplay of structure and agency within the ‘‘morphoge-

netic’’ approach (1982), which refers to change of structure over time. The individual is not

entirely free and autonomous, nor is he or she entirely determined by structure. He or she

has powers of acting and of transforming society (Archer 2002). Structure consists of the

rules and resources that may constrain or enable action, where these constraints have

‘‘differential malleability’’ (1982, p. 462) with some structural properties having more

constraining power, or are more difficult to change, than others. Examples of rules and

resources could be the rules for promotion, or the resources allocated to teaching, such as

technology support or tutors. These circumstances are not of our choosing, and most

constraints except the most dire can be circumnavigated, but with varying degrees of effort(Archer 2000). Out of the interplay between structure and action, new properties, such as

agency, emerge and these are irreducible to what came before (Archer 2000). Structure and

agency may once again interact or interplay, leading to new emergences.

From our interactions with the world, our personal identity emerges, which is a matter

of ‘‘what we care about in the world’’, our fundamental concerns (2002, p. 15). Emotions

play an important role, as they have the ‘‘power to modify the cognitive goal’’ (2000,

p. 196), thus the desire to act, to maintain a relationship with the environment, or to disrupt

that relationship. Emotions, one of the most important of which for professionals is self-

worth, provide a ‘‘commentary on our concerns’’ (2000, p. 195), as is evident in thecomment about his teaching ‘‘life’’ by Percival in the introduction. These concerns are

invested in various aspects of our lives, for example family or careers. Our concerns

prompt judgment about what matters, and what to care about. A crucial aspect of the

interplay between structure and agency with regard to enhancing one’s own performance

would be sense of competence, ‘‘positive feedback from practical reality signaling (some)

performative achievement’’ (Archer 2000, p. 196). Via an ongoing internal conversation,

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which she refers to as ‘‘reflexivity’’ (2007), our concerns or commitments attain a ‘‘unique

pattern’’ (Archer 2000, p. 240), which generates our personal identity. Archer maintains

that our personal identity, that we acquire at maturity, is the outcome of a ‘‘continuous

sense of self’’ (2000, p. 9), also evident in the sense of continuity of identity and com-

mitments of Percival. Out of this emerges for many of us a social identity, which shedescribes as the capacity to express what we care about in social roles that are appropriate

in doing this (2002, p. 17). Such a social role could be that of a ‘‘lecturer’’. If being a good

lecturer is important to one’s sense of self worth, then one would be spurred to cognitive

action if one’s sense of competence was affirmed. When there is alignment between an

individual’s commitments and their social roles, social identity is achieved (Archer 2000).

The emergence of agency as a positive response to a sense of self worth and competence

would also support the account of identity as emerging from an individual’s trajectory

within a community of practice (Wenger 1998). According to Wenger, ‘‘Identity is pro-

duced as a lived experience of participation in specific communities’’ (1998, p. 151). This

sense of identity leads to creativity and meaning making, essential in order to flourish as a

good teacher. If it is enhanced via participation in a community of practice, and pre-

sumably within prior communities, this helps to explain why an individual’s biography is

relevant to the story of one’s becoming a good teacher. Archer’s theories have been

elaborated in general sociological texts. In this study, we attempt to demonstrate how this

interplay between structure and agency holds in the specific context of teaching in higher

education. The research design of this study is described in the next section.

Research design

This study became possible due to a task the authors of this paper were engaged in as part

of their work to enhance the stature of teaching at the university. In 2006 the University

adopted a strategy to enhance the learning experience of the first-year student, known as

the ‘‘First-year Academy’’. A small-scale initiative launched as part of this strategy was the

‘‘Rector’s Dinner for Top Achieving First-year Students’’. One purpose of this initiative

was to spotlight the commitment and dedication of lecturers of first-year modules. In this

scheme a list of the 30 most successful first-year students is compiled each year, and at the

beginning of the following year, they are invited to a dinner with the University’s

Principal. The lecturers, whom these 30 students nominate as having made the most impacton their achievement, are also invited to the dinner. The students write letters to the

lecturers, explaining why they have nominated them. The lecturers write replies, with a

message of support for the students. In order to explore what could be learnt from this

group of lecturers about good practice and support for good practice, a team of researchers

from the CTL embarked on a small-scale research project to interview a selection of these

lecturers in 2008 (see the outcome in Leibowitz et al. 2009) and in 2010. The 2010 study is

the focus of this article.

This interpretive study is what Crawford (2010) and Clegg (2005) would refer to as a

‘‘bottom up’’ account, focusing on how the lecturers describe their attributes and theirengagement with their own professional development. It avoids the tendency of academic

developers to ‘‘impose their own views on others’’ (Kahn 2009, p. 206). The interview

approach was adopted as an attempt to enable the interviewers and interviewees to surface

a ‘‘sense of who they are and what their current experiences meant for them’’ (Taylor 2008,

p. 30). The team devised a semi-structured interview schedule (see Appendix 2) focusing

on how the lecturer perceived him or herself as good and what he or she did in order to

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become, or to sustain him or herself as a good lecturer. Our intention was to hear from the

lecturers in their own words. We were aware that they, like all individuals in interview

situations, make strategic and rhetorical choices about how they portray themselves

(Cousin 2009; Edwards 1997). Because they are constructing their identity and sense of

self as they tell their stories, they tend to portray a more unified and organised sense of whothey are than might be the case in reality (Taylor 2008, p. 30). However we believed that

given our focus on human intentionality and agency, their control over the telling of their

stories was necessary.

We did not seek to define what we considered to be good lecturers, but rather selected

academics out of the group that had been nominated by the 2010 top performing students.

This selection was conducted according to criteria which ensured a spread in terms of level

of seniority, discipline, race and gender, and preferred to choose those who had either been

nominated by more than one student in the same year, had been nominated in a previous

year or who had received other teaching awards at the University (and who had not been

interviewed by the team previously). Ten academics agreed to participate in the audio-

taped interviews, which lasted between half an hour and one and a half hours (see

Appendix 1). In some cases the lecturers followed up the interviews with written accounts

or provided further information and examples of their work. We do not believe that the fact

that the nominations came from academically strong students distorted the study unduly in

favour of an elite or elitist group, as many of the interviewees subsequently stressed that

they were surprised to have been nominated by the strongest students. They believed they

cared more about the struggling students.

The ten interview transcripts were subjected to thematic content analysis by the dif-

ferent members of the research team, drawing on a set of codes that were developed by theteam in the earlier study, but revised in the light of the data and in reading of the work of

Archer (2000, 2007) on structure and agency. The codes, used as subsections for the

findings in the next section, are: biography, contextual influences, dispositions of the

lecturer (emotions and attitudes); and steps taken to enhance teaching.

Findings: becoming a good lecturer

Biography

Biographical influences featured prominently in the motivation to become a good lec-

turer in several of the accounts and generated the personal identity that Archer refers to.

These influences are part of the ‘‘given’’ in an individual’s trajectory, and are them-

selves influenced by the ceaseless interplay between structure and agency in earlier

phases of an individual’s life trajectory. In Wendy1’s case biographical influences

included that she struggled with mathematics as a student (possibly a constraining

influence), but that a model lecturer provided her with the impetus to teach well, thus an

enabling influence.

Lecturers gave examples of how their families and childhoods—whether these weremiddle class or working class—influenced them to want to become good lecturers. The

frequency of these references is not surprising, since the family is a key influence in

1 All first names are pseudonyms.

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individuals’ educational biographies (Leibowitz 2009). The family is the primary social-

isation agency in general (Bernstein 1990), and in relation to education and literacy in

particular (Hannon 1995). Percival’s account shows how his father supported his devel-

oping a love for his subject:

‘‘I remember saying to my father, ‘‘You know Dad, I’m not very good at sport, but

I’m very interested in microscopy’’, so he said, ‘‘Son, if that is your interest, that is

what you must do’’, I have never forgotten it because many fathers push their

children to go and do something they don’t want to do, so it allowed me time to go

and collect samples of mud from the streams and so on…. I can tell you in all

honesty that I never changed, my whole life actually has been a hobby, that gives you

an idea as to why I so love my subject, because it has always been with me.’’

(Percival)

In the following account Cyril’s motivation for becoming a good lecturer draws strength

from the fact that he might be the only one of his peers from a rural school for black children in apartheid South Africa that reached university:

‘‘I grew up in very difficult circumstances and if I think back today, in that whole

class that were with me in primary school in Wolseley I think I am the only one who

got out of that situation. I never forget those who were with me and especially if I go

back to my family and I see the people who were with me at primary school, I do

realise how happy I am and how blessed I am, so I need to do something in small

ways also on their behalf …. And those are the things that drive what I am doing.’’

(Cyril)

This is an example of what Yosso (2005) calls ‘‘community cultural wealth’’, where family

and community aspirations or forms of resistance motivate him or her, in an agentic

fashion, to succeed in education.

Prior professional experience is another form of biographical influence mentioned by

some of these good lecturers. Wendy taught in a tertiary institution for disadvantaged

students in the largely rural Northern Cape Province before arriving at Stellenbosch

University. Cyril and Mahlubi were high school teachers and both were involved in the

provincial administration responsible for schools. The insights they acquired from these

experiences better positioned them to respond to the diverse needs of the students they now

encounter at the University.

Current contextual influences

The second set of influences on the lecturers’ becoming and remaining good teachers

derived from their immediate work contexts. The dramatic, and positive influence that a

workgroup (Trowler 2008) can have on enhancing teaching, is illustrated in Wendy’s

comments:

‘‘Last year I taught in John’s group and that I must also say I was privileged last year

to teach within a group of people. Both John and Jaco were nominated for awardspreviously and so to work with them was a dream come true really, because everyone

is trying to be good at what they are doing and be good lecturers and make Maths 1

enjoyable… That drives you to be as good as them and to be inspired by what they

have done.’’ (Wendy)

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Steps taken to enhance teaching

Reflection is the most common enhancement activity cited by the lecturers. Sizwe writes

notes about his reflections after each lesson:

‘‘I make sure that after each and every lesson, I sit down, I can call it ‘‘in-service

training’’, I sit down and say, ‘‘OK let me look where I can do better, and where did

I lose my students, and where did I push them too fast?’’ (Sizwe)

While reflection may be an act that a lecturer consciously performs, it is also

attitudinal, a way of responding analytically or critically to information that comes

his or her way. Cyril described his reaction to the letter from the top-performing

student in this manner:

‘‘Oh I can tell you I am very critical about my own work and I’m very aware of all

my gaps…

. But for the first time when I started to read what [the student] wroteabout me, it gave me a better understanding of what she is getting from me, or let me

rather put it, what I have helped her to start to see…. I looked through that booklet

that we got after the award ceremony, it can be quite interesting to go and analyse

what were the things, what are the common threads in the students’ comments.’’

(Cyril)

Reflection is also about being open to criticism from others, ‘‘so I stopped doing [an

activity in the classroom], because I felt that was a bit unfair to them, so I am open to any

criticism that students have’’ (Lee Anne).

As an example of practical steps taken, only Cyril mentioned writing a paper aboutteaching for a scholarly journal. This is not surprising, given the low value traditionally

accorded to publishing on teaching as opposed to publishing in one’s disciplinary area

of expertise, in research-led institutions. Another step taken was to innovate. Wendy

successfully introduced an essay into the mathematics class. Many of the respondents

mentioned constant and careful preparation, which, in line with Berliner’s triad of influ-

ences on good teaching (2001), could also be seen as an activity undertaken to improve

teaching.

The significance of the interplay between structure and agency

The study supports the notion of an interplay between structure and agency, which has

been demonstrated in relation to the dimensions of biography, current contextual influ-

ences, lecturer dispositions, and steps taken to enhance teaching. The interviews demon-

strate that being a good lecturer involves a great deal more than a static set of skills,

personality attributes or knowledge. Biographical and immediate contextual features

constrain or enable the lecturer to exercise agency. Agency in the higher education

teaching and learning domain is exemplified by many self-initiated activities such as

reflection, innovating, engaging in scholarship, and on occasion, by working against the

grain. Agency is not free floating, but emerges from, and impacts on, the various contexts

and personal attributes. Archer (2000, p. 50) puts this succinctly, ‘‘Our continuous sense of

self, or self-consciousness, is advanced as emerging from the ways in which we are

biologically constituted, the way the world is, and from the necessity of our human

interaction with our external environment’’.

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This study has taken place in a specific research-led and comparatively privileged

institutional context in South African terms—one that features only some aspects of

structure. Certain enabling structural elements, especially material, are taken for granted by

individuals in a setting like the one described in this study. Thus it is only by investigating

the interplay between structure and agency comparatively, in conditions of deprivation aswell as contexts of plenitude, that one can assess how aspects of an environment may

influence the interplay of agency and structure. The concept of agency is often deployed in

relation to individuals having to go against the grain in obvious ways, for example working

class students entering academia (Clegg 2005). To gain a more embracing understanding of

the concept, contexts such as the one referred to in this study, where constraints might be

more subtle, are also important.

The interplay between structure and agency has implications for strategies for the

professional development of academics. It points to the need to take institutional context

as well as lecturers’ contextually influenced biographies into account. It suggests

maximising the lecturers’ commitments, values, and most significantly, their sense of

self-worth. The removal of disabling rules, counteracting a culture which undervalues

teaching—the features which might constrain the emergence of agency—are very pos-

sibly more appropriate elements of such a strategy, than extrinsic forms of motivation

such as greater awards or rules or exhortations of how to teach better. In the same way

that educators are frequently exhorted to take into account their students’ prior learning,

perhaps it is time to take into account and respond to the biographical and structural

features that have constrained or enabled an individual academic’s trajectory, and that

continue to do so.

Recognising that there are many more facets to being and becoming effective in one’srole as university teachers—and acknowledging that these multiple facets interact in a

variety of ways—offers a cautionary to heads of academic departments and academic

development practitioners not to take the lived experience of the academics they work with

at face value. Even a university teacher who has been recognised for her or his good

teaching has in all likelihood done so as a result of a unique interplay between the structure

and agency that comprise their lived experience. A one-size fits all approach becomes

inappropriate in this situation.

Thus this interplay points to the importance of contextually sensitive professional

development, and teaching and learning enhancement policies and programmes. The

significance of human agency, and of intrinsic motivation in particular, points to the needfor close attention to institutional cultures and discourses that value teaching as an

important aspect of the academic enterprise, and to the need for the promotion of

opportunities for academics to take conscious steps to enhance their own practices such

that they too might reflect, ultimately, on having experienced ‘a wonderful life’.

Acknowledgments Thanks to Kevin Williams for providing a constructive and critical response to a draft

of this paper.

Appendix 1: Lecturers interviewed

See Table 1.

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Appendix 2: Interview questions

1. What are the attributes that characterize you as a ‘‘good lecturer’’?2. What facilitates your becoming and remaining a good lecturer?

3. What prompts you to want to enhance your teaching?

4. What could be done to enhance your being or becoming a good teacher?

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Table 1 Lecturers interviewed and their details

Lecturer

(pseudonym)

Faculty Gender Race Seniority Awards

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Lee Anne Economics and

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Kirsty Arts F W Associate

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