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This chapter explores the implications of acknowledging one's own excessive entitlement and living contradictions in contributing to Living-Educational-Theory Research. The analysis emphasises the importance of accepting one's educational responsibility for one's own continuing professional development in inquiries of the kind that address this query: ‘How do I improve my professional educational practices in education with values of human flourishing?’ This responsibility includes making public evidence and values-based explanations of educational influences in learning, in contributing to the global knowledge base of education.

The notion of excessive teacher entitlement was coined by Ratnam to characterise the putative deficit view of teachers that is projected onto them. Craig (2013) developed Schwab's concept, the teachers' ‘best-loved self’, to embrace teachers' input in promoting the learning and well-being of all in the institutions they serve (Ratnam & Craig, 2021). My experiences of being a living contradiction are grounded in a tension between my best-loved self and my experience of excessive entitlements. Living educational theories research in which individual practitioner-researchers generate their validated, evidence- and values-based explanations of educational influences in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the social formations that influence their practice with values of human flourishing, have helped me leverage the potential for growth afforded by this tension. The perspective draws insights from the disciplines of education including Habermas's Critical Theory. It also includes insights from other methodologies such as autoethnography, action research, phenomenology, self-study and narrative inquiry.

As Ratnam makes clear, a cultural–historical perspective on teacher/faculty excessive entitlement is indispensable if we are to use this concept to work with, rather than undermine, education practitioners. In this chapter, a networked relational model of activity is proposed as a tool for understanding excessive entitlement from a cultural–historical activity theory (CHAT) perspective, so that the transformative potential of both entitlement and the modeling of it may be harnessed. The networked relational model, which represents CHAT activity systems as a hand-draw or painted network of relationships between actors and artifacts, allows its creators, in their capacity as researchers or academics, to use it as an imaginative artifact in the Wartofskian sense. That is, by representing activity systems of academic performance as networks of interacting entities, the emergence of excessive entitlement can be traced to, and perhaps mitigated through the relationships that they represent. In this regard, the why, what, and how artifacts proposed by Engeström are taken up as useful means for enhancing the functioning of the networked relational model not just as a tool for analyses of entitlement but also a means for envisioning alternative countercultures into being.

In our societal context, the neoliberal competitive and knowledge-oriented culture still exerts a stranglehold on teachers' sense of professional autonomy giving rise to a deficit image of them as ‘excessively entitled’. The purpose of this chapter is to eschew this deficit view of teachers by bringing their agentive side to the fore. First, it explores the concept of ‘excessive teacher entitlement’ in terms of the prevalent characteristics of the culture of teaching in schools and the nature of authority wielded by teachers in this culture and its negative consequence on student learning using an excerpt from an English as Second Language (ESL) classroom in India where this study is set. This episode helps expose the teacher's unawareness of the gaps between their intention and action, a hallmark of excessive entitlement. Second, it juxtaposes an alternative image of ‘teacher as researcher’ to foreground teachers' ‘transformative activist stance’ which revolves around their ideological becoming in agentively striving to realise their ‘best-loved self’. Framed within Vygotskian Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, the principle of ‘double stimulation’ provides a powerful analytical lens to unpack the complex discursive dynamics of their practice nested within historically developing contradictions. These contradictions work tacitly to drive a wedge between teachers' intentions and action making them feel excessively entitled to passively acquiesce with the existing order of things. This study provides some signposts for teacher education about creating an environment where teachers can reclaim their transformative agency freeing themselves from the ‘excessive entitlement’ that binds their practice to the status quo and diminishes their relationships with students.

In an age of educational reform which incentivises increased digitisation and standardisation, teachers are expected to embrace the rise of ‘new’ tools and pedagogies with limited agency to inform, question or direct what ‘newness’ must be brought into their classrooms. Drawing on my research with English as a Foreign Language (EFL) educators in South Africa and using an ‘excessive entitlement’ lens, I showcase how teachers' lack of agency can result in ‘defensive’ and ‘coercive’ practices in the classroom which are a far cry from the education transformation imagined according to either global and local imaginaries for teaching and learning. If we are interested in an educational revolution, I argue that a fundamental reorientation in education recognising teachers' agency in informing change is necessary. To do so requires theoretically driven intervention methodologies which view the competing demands placed on teachers as entry points to developing their agency and volition to find practices which work for them and their students in the classroom. To that end, I illustrate how Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) informed interventions like Change Laboratories could aid in this fundamental repositioning for teachers regarding transformational efforts and their far-reaching potential for educational revolution becoming conscious of and overcoming their feelings of excessive entitlement.

In this chapter, we introduce the topic of essentiality of work, exploring its implications for workers, labour markets, and public policy. The essentiality of work often corresponds in a dialectical way with the precarity of work, raising pressing questions about how societies value and, more pertinently, devalue various types of labour, thereby influencing life chances and societal integration. What we see in the contributions to this volume and the wider evidence is that essential work is typically performed by workers who are treated as expendable, or inessential. We proceed to outline the various contributions from the studies compiled in this volume. These present diverse perspectives on ‘essentiality’ and the experiences of essential workers. Offering a range of new empirical insights, the volume underlines the vitality and lasting relevance of essentiality – both as a concept and in the experience of workers – beyond the pandemic.

This introductory chapter begins by outlining the background of this book: how the concept of excessive teacher entitlement took shape and was progressively enriched through my collaborative work with Cheryl J. Craig. Our ongoing informal dialogues gave rise to an invisible college where we co-created new meanings to deepen the understanding of professional inertia. We saw professional inertia as a manifestation of excessive teacher/faculty entitlement constantly adrift in a yin and yang relationship with their best-loved self. This insight came from challenging the narrow mainstream view of the notion of excessive entitlement as a purely volitional act of autonomous individuals which leads to blaming and pathologizing teachers/faculty. Instead, a Vygotskian cultural-historical perspective is proposed. This perspective facilitates a more complex historicized view of the phenomenon by directing attention to the historically and culturally mediated nature of excessive teacher/faculty entitlement and the means to alleviate it. The healing touch to excessive teacher/faculty entitlement repeatedly surfaces as humanizing pedagogy. This involves helping teachers/faculty develop empowered entitlement and work towards realizing their dreams, their best-loved self. Finally, this introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the 15 chapters that follow. They explore the notion of excessive teacher/faculty entitlement in diverse sociocultural contexts and examine promising approaches to address this problem from different theoretical and methodological angles. You are invited to join us in this rich journey of inquiry and transformation.

In this chapter, we examine the negative impact of excessive teacher entitlement on school life. We argue that teacher entitlement goes beyond individual traits, intricately linked to sociocultural processes and power dynamics within and outside educational institutions. The focus is on theoretical foundations to understand pedagogical practices in science education, highlighting two key components contributing to excessive teacher entitlement. First, we discuss the relationship between teachers and scientific knowledge, emphasising that a narrow view of science may create a strong hierarchical dynamic in classrooms, with teachers positioned as knowledgeable authorities and neglecting students' needs. Second, the organisation of interaction between teachers and students is explored, emphasising how teachers perceive and wield authority. We recognise the limitations of common critiques of authority in science education, as they may lead to excessive indulgence or indifference. We propose a teaching framework based on cultural-historical activity theory to address or prevent excessive teacher entitlement in science classrooms. While acknowledging the phenomenon's complexity, the framework is presented as a pedagogical reorientation addressing identified underpinnings. The study concludes by suggesting that the proposed framework, grounded in science education experiences, could serve as a foundation for understanding and addressing excessive teacher entitlement across various academic fields. We suggest that the authoritative teacher style aims to balance extremes, providing an alternative to authoritarianism while avoiding carelessness. Additionally, the scientific-cultural inquiry promotes a pluralist approach to knowledge, challenging the notion of absolute truth in science education.