Teacher Agency, Policy Reform, and Instructional Practice in Nigerian Public Secondary Schools: A Critical Realist Inquiry

This study examines the relationship between teacher agency, education policy reform, and instructional practice in public secondary schools in Nigeria through a Critical Realist theoretical lens. Teacher agency, the capacity of teachers to act purposefully and make consequential choices within structural constraints, has emerged as a central concept in educational reform theory. In Nigeria, decades of top-down policy reforms have frequently failed to translate into meaningful changes in classroom practice, and the role of teacher agency in mediating or resisting reform implementation has not been systematically theorised. The study employs a Critical Realist design involving theoretical sampling of 12 secondary schools across Ogun, Kogi, and Kano States, chosen to maximise variation in reform exposure and institutional context. Data are gathered through 40 in-depth teacher interviews, 24 classroom observations, and policy document analysis over nine months. Data are analysed using the Critical Realist framework of retroduction and analytical generalisation. Findings reveal that teachers exercise differential forms of agency, ranging from compliant implementation through creative adaptation to subversive resistance, depending on the alignment between reform demands and local structural conditions, professional identity, and institutional culture. The study makes a theoretical contribution by developing a Contextual Teacher Agency Model that bridges Critical Realism, professional practice theory, and Nigerian educational administration. Recommendations address how reform design processes should be restructured to leverage and support productive teacher agency. Keywords: teacher agency, policy reform, Critical Realism, instructional practice, secondary schools Nigeria.