Chinese language teachers’ agency in homework practices in a Xinjiang minority county

Grounded in Archer’s critical realist framework, this study investigates how Chinese language teachers in Xinjiang exercised agency in assigning homework. Using a mixed-methods design, it examines the dynamics between teachers’ concerns regarding the functions of homework, the modes of action through which they assigned it, and the personal as well as contextual properties that conditioned these processes. Teachers who espoused more constructivist orientations toward literacy often reverted to traditional, exam-oriented tasks, shaped by students’ limited proficiency in the national language and the pressures of high-stakes assessment. Parental involvement further complicated this landscape: although intended to support learning, it was frequently interpreted by teachers through a deficit lens, with local cultural norms seen as signaling indifference or even counterproductive behavior, which deepened their concerns. Together, these dynamics steered teachers toward pragmatic, utilitarian forms of homework, sustaining rather than transforming established routines. The analysis demonstrates how teacher agency in minority contexts emerges through reflexive accommodation to structural and cultural conditions, offering insight into the bounded nature of action under monolingual policy priorities.