DEVELOPING TEACHER AGENCY FOR INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION: AN ANALYSIS OF PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

This paper presents a multiple case study concerning how the Inclusiveness Education Agency of the prospective teacher can be fostered by the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes in the Punjab, Pakistan. The quintain, which is the agency of inclusive education in ITE, is the conceptual thread linking four institutionally differentiated cases which were founded on disparities in the institutional environment in Punjab. The study uses the transformative framework of teacher agency and the multiple case study analysis to explore how the enabling conditions, agentic strategies, and cross-case patterns contribute, or do not contribute, to the development of professional identity among prospective teachers. The data obtained through semi-structured interviews with twenty-three prospective teachers was transcribed using TurboScribe AI and checked by the research team afterwards. Data management and analysis were conducted using NVivo 15 with AI-assisted coding. The results reveal that agentic orientations are deeply shaped by institutional context, which makes curriculum-practice disconnects restrictive to agentic development. Prospective teachers rely on personal attributes as agentic assets despite structural constraints. The paper derives policy implications for ITE curriculum reform, faculty development, and inclusive education policy in Punjab. The paper contributes situated, context-specific evidence to an under-researched area of global significance.