Teacher Agency in the Context of China’s Curriculum-based Ideological and Moral Education (CIME): A Integrative Conceptual Review

Abstract

This integrative conceptual review synthesises current scholarship on teacher agency in the context of China’s Curriculum-based Ideological and Moral Education (CIME) reform, with particular attention to College English teaching. Drawing on ecological, sociocultural, identity-based, and value-oriented perspectives, the review shows that teacher agency under CIME is a dynamic, interpretive, and contextually mediated process shaped by the interaction of personal beliefs, institutional structures, and broader cultural–discursive frameworks. The enactment of agency involves teachers’ interpretive judgment, negotiation of pedagogical and value-oriented expectations, emotional meaning-making, and adaptive classroom practices. The review proposes a three-level ecological system—personal, institutional, and cultural–discursive—to explain the enabling and constraining conditions shaping agency in this reform environment. By integrating insights across diverse strands of literature, the review extends international understandings of teacher agency to ideologically framed curriculum reforms and highlights the need to consider value orientations, identity negotiations, and discursive contexts in future analyses. Implications are offered for teacher education, institutional leadership, and policy development, alongside directions for future research.