Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES, cilt.57, sa.2, ss.1-29, 2025 (SSCI, Scopus)
This study examines how teachers’ professional agency and identity development emerge through their sensemaking of critical incidents across the temporal dimensions of currere within Türkiye’s centralized education system. Using the phenomenological methodology, in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 teachers selected through maximum variation sampling from public schools in Ankara. Data were analysed through an integrated approach combining critical incident analysis with thematic analysis within currere’s framework. The findings suggest how teachers construct and exercise their agency through critical incidents across four temporal and agentic dimensions: regressive, progressive, analytic, and synthetic. The study potentially extends currere methodology by demonstrating its effectiveness in understanding teacher agency development within centralized systems, particularly highlighting how critical incidents serve as catalysts for professional growth across temporal dimensions. Results illustrate how teachers successfully integrate personal agency with institutional requirements through temporal reflection on critical incidents, developing professional identities characterized by autobiographically-mediated institutional agency. This research contributes to understanding how structured temporal reflection enhances teacher agency and professional identity, offering practical recommendations for teacher education and development programmes in centralized systems.