Gang Zhu and his colleagues have most certainly placed the examination of teacher agency, resilience, and identity at the heart of developing understandings of teaching and teacher education through their efforts in creating this book. The text explores these themes theoretically and conceptually through a consideration of a number of interesting research projects that employ a range of methodological approaches. Importantly, the contributors draw on work from a range of contexts and settings including rural and international school contexts, and from teacher preparation through to special education. By so doing, the volume offers insights into the complexity of teachers’ agency, resilience and identity in ways that help to draw attention to shortcomings of simplistic approaches to education as a technical enterprise. With forewords from two esteemed professors, the strength of arguments presented offers readers a text that is both challenging and thought-provoking.

John Loughran, Monash University

This book offers an impressive analysis of the impact of neoliberalism on the work and lives of teachers. Chapters come from all over the world. The authors are all concerned to explore the relationships between agency and resilience on the one hand and performativity and accountability systems on the other. The work is theoretically very well informed but is also grounded in the experiences of teachers. It will be of interest to scholars, teachers and policymakers around the world and offers highly original insights about educational policies in the twenty-first century.

Ian Menter, University of Oxford

This book explores the changing landscape of the factors that determine teachers’ agency and offers a comprehensive view of the teachers’ identity processes and their ability to cope with adverse circumstances in the neoliberal education reforms. Being resilient to conflicting ideas and behaviors, comprehending social phenomena, and facing challenges become essential abilities that redefine the role of teachers. The present compilation aims at fostering critical reflection and promoting scholarly discussions for adequate positioning of the concepts of agency, resilience, and identity within teaching and teacher education.

Juanjo Mena, University of Salamanca

Understanding the dynamics of teacher agency, resilience, and identity in the neoliberal age: Contexts and Issues, edited by Gang Zhu, explores the development or enactment of teacher agency, resilience, and identity within contexts shaped by neoliberal policies, as they are instantiated in different parts of the world. In particular, the book’s chapters explore how teacher agency can be supported in ways that enable work toward a democratic vision of society, in neoliberal contexts that thwart both democracy and agency. For those who value democracy and authentic learning, neoliberal policies that regulate what teachers can do, and that limit teachers’ agency, are a significant problem. The chapters in this important book explore and shed light on that problem, and on possibilities for invigorating the agency and resilience of classroom teachers.

Christine E. Sleeter, California State University, Monterey Bay