EFL teachers’ agency in Chinese universities against the backdrop of “Curriculum Ideology and Politics”—an ecological perspective

As a language education policy, Curriculum Ideology and Politics (CIP) has constructed an ecological environment for teacher agency. From the ecological perspective, this study explores the manifestations of and influencing factors in university EFL teachers’ agency through policy analysis, interviews, classroom observations, and reflective journals. The study finds: (1) In the spatial dimension, the macrosystem exhibits a clear ideological tendency but teacher agency is positive and active; the exosystem indirectly promotes teacher agency and acts as a mediating tool; the mesosystem limits or even suppresses teacher agency; within the microsystem, teachers implement the policies in their own teaching styles but often lack sufficient scaffolding. (2) In the temporal dimension, the practical-evaluative system shows the most evident teacher agency, while the iterative and projective systems show relatively less evident teacher agency. The interaction of the spatial and temporal dimensions jointly constructs teacher agency. The study suggests that the implementation of CIP requires the introduction of third-party forces and greater active roles to be played by intermediate institutions.