Education, professional agency, and inclusive societies : insights from research and practice in a small-state context

Abstract

This book brings together three scholarly contributions that, while addressing different educational domains, are united by a shared concern with agency, inclusion, and the ethical purposes of education. The essays collectively examine how education systems respond to change, diversity, and inequality – particularly within the constraints and possibilities of a small-state context like Malta. Rather than offering prescriptive solutions or universal models, this volume foregrounds education as a relational, moral, and political practice, shaped by lived experience, institutional structures, and historical trajectories. The essays explore leadership and professional development in schools, teacher identity and professional agency, and the evolving discourse of inclusive societies. Together, they reveal how educational change is negotiated at the intersection of policy, practice, and values, and how educators and institutions struggle with tensions between autonomy and accountability, inclusion and stratification, reform and professional judgement.