A CASE STUDY EXPLORATION OF ALBANIAN PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER EXPERIENCE WHEN VISITED BY SPANISH PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS

: The Komisioni Kombëtar i Edukimit Katolik Shqiptar (KKEKSH) aims to reform education in Albania. In 2022 it established a relationship with Stella Maris College (SMC) in Madrid, Spain. As part of this relationship, a teacher exchange program was established between the SMC and the KKEKSH. This exchange aims to share good practices in the field of using active methodologies in the classroom and explore the impact of such an exchange program on the professional identity of Albanian primary teachers. In the first week of June 2023, a group of three SMR teachers visited three Albanian Catholic schools for a week. Based on this experience, three theoretical constructs are analysed to explore the experience of the Albanian teacher: transformative learning, agency, and hybridization. A mixed methodology was used, based on a case study of the experience of Albanian teachers during the visit of the Spanish teachers. Two questionnaires were designed and shared online with the Albanian teachers who participated in the experience to collect information about, 1) a qualitative pre-visit questionnaire sought to explore the views of initial teacher identity and agency, 2) a mixed qualitative with Likert style quantitative post-visit questionnaire sought to explore changes in teacher identify and agency as result of the Spanish teacher visit. A constant comparative analysis, a percentage frequency of mentions and a basic SPSS analysis of the data were performed. The results show that by providing teachers with a space for reflection in their daily practice, the way they conceptualize their pedagogical knowledge changes. Communication between Spanish and Albanian teachers created a space for the hybrid identity of the participants to be scrutinized and evaluated. The participants in this study,

The strategy for the development of preuniversity education for the year 2021 to 2026, ´Strategjia per Arsimin 2021-2026´ (SA 2021(SA -2026)), proposed by the Albanian Ministry of Education, Sports, and Youth (MASR) aims to provide a framework to guide Albania's integration into Europe.There is however an issue not addressed in the report, the education system in Albania is highly political and corrupt, teaching staff are not selected based on merit but on ´who they know´ and ´how much money they offer´ as described by a headteacher of a secondary school north of Albania (Appendix 1).

The problem
In response student numbers are decreasing, according to the Albanian National Agency of Statistics (INSTAT 1), there is a 13.2% reduction in the number of pre-university students enrolled in education between the 2021 and 2022 academic years.In addition, the number of teachers in schools is decreasing with schools reporting an alarming 10% reduction in the number of teachers progressing from the 2021 school year into the 2022 school year (News report: top channel 2022).The teachers who remain in Albania feel undervalued, underpaid, unnecessarily stressed as well as unclear of their identity in education, and lack the freedom to act (Appendix 1).

Towards a solution
The Catholic church, through the overseeing body, the Komisioni Kombëtar i Edukimit Katolik Shqiptar (KKEKSH) aims to reform education in Albania in response to the call by Pope Francis who in 2021 established the ´global compact´ in education (Wodon 2022).
KKEKSH in 2022 established a relationship with Stella Maris College (SMC) in Madrid Spain.As part of this relationship, a teacher exchange program was established between the SMC and KKEKSH.SMC is a private Catholic school run by a religious Catholic community of brothers and priests known as the Disciples of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary (DCJM).DCJM insists on a vision of education in which the end goal for students and teachers alike is seen as to flourish, and DCJM insists on the importance of an active approach to education with a clear teacher identity (Capo and Granados, 2023).
In the first week of June 2023, a group of three Spanish teachers visited three Albanian Catholic schools for a weeklong visit in a fraternal teacher exchange as a way of ameliorating, locally, the situation in education in Albania through shared professional development.

Exchange programs
On exchange programs, Aydin (2012) reports from his studies, that they significantly contribute to teacher professional development by raising teacher awareness of different educational policies and forms of inclusive teaching methods, in this way helping to raise teacher ownership of their profession (Hovland, 2009;Isabelli-García et al, 2018).According to Klein and Wikan (2019), the greatest benefit of a teacher exchange program is the growth in reflexive thought.This directly influences, as Dooley, Dooley, & Carranza (2008) highlight, the participant's beliefs and values, a consequence of which is that teachers who participate in exchange programs challenge educational philosophies (Trend, 2011) and teaching methodologies (Li and Edwards, 2013).SMC and KKEKSH through the exchange program aim to change the beliefs and the role of the teacher in the classroom, in doing so potentially forming/ reforming teacher identity and agency (Aydin, 2012).
Within the European Union, one international exchange program stands out, Erasmus, which aims to support developments in education by guiding participants in skill development (Dolasir & Tuncel, 2004;Pineda, Moreno, and Belvis, 2008).

Exchange programs and Albania
The participation of Albania in the Erasmus program, however, has always been with students at the undergraduate and postgraduate level and no records can be found of an Erasmus exchange having taken place with teachers at a preuniversity level.
To avoid the challenges highlighted by Vande Berg, Paige, and Lou (2012) and Klein and Wikan (2019) relating to the length of the exchange program and meaningful engagement, the schedule for the weeklong Spanish teacher visit to Albania was planned to allow the Spanish teachers to firstly observe teaching and then be given the opportunity to teach a series of lessons.

Aim of the study and research study
This study aims to explore the experience of catholic Albanian primary school teachers when visited by catholic Spanish primary school teachers, more specifically exploring the impact of such an exchange programme on the professional identity of Albanian primary school teachers.
To achieve the aim, two research questions guide this study: 1) As a result of the teacher exchange how do Albanian primary school teachers perceive their own identity and their approach to teaching?
2) What views do the Albanian primary school teachers hold on the approach that the visiting Spanish teachers take to teaching?

Theoretical background
This study is focused on three theoretical constructs to explore the Albanian teacher's experience: transformative learning, agency, and hybridity.We start by introducing the theory of transformative learning and then link this to the construct of agency and hybridity.Mezirow (1991) categorizes the habits and expectations that one forms because of experiences in life as either meaning schemes or meaning perspectives with Sifakis (2007) going on to explain that transformative learning results from transformations in those perspectives.Maciejewska, (2018) could show that their teachers appeared to have enriched their understanding of their world through new experiences they were exposed to.These new experiences lead to disorienting dilemmas-because of the critical reflection that the pre-service teachers went through on their assumptions and experiences.Could the Albanian teachers in my study as a result of the experience also be placed in such disorienting dilemmas, and what happens after?Mezirow (2000) explains that if the Albanian teachers meaning schemes and perspectives cannot account for the experience, he highlights that new perspectives and schemes could emerge, and those could be more inclusive and reflective (Mezirow, 2000).

Agency as means of transformative learning
In this study, the agency is seen through a Freirean vision in which autonomy and hope work hand in hand in helping to reinvent ourselves as educators.As Archer (2007) states, the agency is one's power to reflect on their own circumstances and act on them as a response to the circumstances they find themselves in.In this way reflexivity plays a key role in agency, as Freire (1998) explains reflexivity is an enabling power, allowing teachers to design and determine their own response to situations to act.However, Freire (1998) also reminds us that a teacher's agency is determined by the close relationship they have with educational structures that might oppress agency, in this way, teachers need to see themselves as capable of transforming oppression into their agency by being conscious of the interconnected world we live in.Fraire (1998) and Archer (2007) both stress the individual and the collective nature of agency in both our relationships with others but also with the world.As a result, Ball (2016) like Emirbayer and Mische (1998) highlights the importance of beliefs in the agency, more specifically critical scrutiny of one's beliefs.

Teacher agency in the Albanian education system
Albania has adopted in recent years neoliberalism policy in relation to teacher competence.Schools are expected by MASR to report directly to them on all decisions, as a headteacher of a private college in north Albania highlights, "everything is dictated to us" and if the schools take decisions that go against the ideas of MASR, schools are seen as failures and very often have administrative consequences that follow.In a mini study we conducted looking at the number of times and why MASR, represented through the local education authorities, over the 2022/2023 academic year had emailed schools, we found an overwhelming 30 universal email communications with schools related to instructions and task completion.The deadlines for schools to complete the instructions in all cases had been a maximum of two working days.Appendix 2 shows communication by MASR to schools on numerous topics with direct involvement of MASR in the daily running of schools.
In the report compiled but KKEKSH in 2021, we see that there is very little collaboration between teachers (Appendix 1).In the same report the head teachers explain that there is very little reflection by teachers on methodologies used by themrather classroom teachers have been reduced to technicians of implementing a curriculum based on the plans provided by them by the MASR, they are "following instructions and political views to keep their jobs" as described by another headteacher in the south of Albania.This from a Freirean perspective sees the social dimension of education in Albania as having failed.MASR is removing teacher autonomy, in doing so the professional identity of teachers, their professional development, their role in social justice, and their role to speak out and resist unconsumed educational reform are being destroyed (Buchanan, 2015, Hökkä et al., 2017).In this study, the focus is on the views of Albanian primary school teachers on the visit of their Spanish homologs, exploring whether Albanian teachers recognise opportunities (and limitations) provided by the visit in enhancing their agency through a transformation in their learning via professional development or is the neoliberalism approach employed by MASR so extreme that the Albanian teachers involved in this exchange don't partake in the transformative learning.

Hybridity
In the visit of the Spanish teachers, we have clearly two different cultures potentially colliding with each other.It is the formation of these collisions that Bhabha (1990) explains produces cracks within established approaches and thinking in relation to teaching, leading to potential transformations and the creation of new ways of thinking.Bhabha (1990) goes on to explain that transformations and new ways of thinking could enable the position of educators in relation to professionalism to emerge or potentially allow for power dynamics at play to be contested (Giroux, 2009).Hybridity is a way for educators to learn to create a dialogue between situations they find themselves in, in this way, educators can find space for change to occur through the ontology of difference described in Roth (2019).In searching for this, tensions presented as an opportunity are created, therefore with hybridity as Mayo (2019) argues the solution is neither a nor b, but something else, a mix between a and b.A dialogue between what MASR sees as the practice of teaching and what is employed by the classroom teacher could emerge (Bazzul, 2020).

Methodology and methods
We have grown to see that there is no absolute universal truth or reality when it comes to research in education.However, we also believe that while there is no absolute truth and reality in education research, there is locally constructed truth and a local reality in education both being socially constructed, where culture and emotions play a huge part in their construction, a view supported by Guba and Lincoln (1983).The pragmatic nature of our thinking favours both the use of quantitative and qualitative approaches to data collection (Johnson and Christensen, 2012;Duffy and Jonassen, 1992).

Mixed methodology
This study made use of mixed-methodology sequentially embedded in the research design to answer the two research questions (Cresswell, 2015).To get a more complete understanding of the impact the exchange programme had on the Albanian primary school teacher identity this study then used the convergent design of mixed methodology (Doyle et al, 2015).As highlighted in Creswell et al. in 2011 andO'Cathain (2010) equal priority is assigned to quantitative and qualitative data.

Case study research
In this study, we focused on one instance of an experience hoping to gain local theoretical and professional insight by documenting the experience conducted in naturalistic settings (Yin, 2009).This study is therefore a case study of the experience of the Albanian teachers when visited by the Spanish teachers in a fraternal exchange.While there is no clear set of outcomes on how the Spanish teacher visit will affect the Albanian teachers, this case study will be used to fully illuminate, thus, describe the experience and present answers to our research questions based on the three main theories of transformative learning, agency, and hybridity (Yin, 2009).
Some consider case study research weak as a social science method with special reference to the fact that findings from case study research cannot be generalised with data collected being subjective (Yin, 2009;Gerring, 2006;Simons, 2015).In this study, we do not intend to make the assumption that the findings can be applied to the general.My pragmatic view holds tight to the importance of holistic and meaningful characteristics of singular real-life events without an actual need for generalisation.Furthermore, in this single case study, the focus is on the local, local view of the visit, local transformative learning, local agency, and hybridity-this is what we consider as one of the main strengths of case study research that it can be a greater representation of reality than any large-scale study (Yin, 2009;Donmoyer, 2000;Flyvberg, 2011).

Participants
KKEKSH and SMC in their joint working together have selected three schools to participate along with the teachers in each school that will be involved in the weeklong exchange.
The three schools that will participate in the weeklong exchange are private and managed by two Catholic religious' communities and are in two distinct areas of Albania.The schedule for the weeklong exchange can be found in Appendix 3.
The three Spanish teachers that had been selected to partake in this exchange included Andres, Carla, and Marta, all three are primary school teachers, a short biography about each teacher's teaching experience was shared with the three participating schools.Please note that the names ´Andre´, ´Carla´, and ´Marta´ are pseudonyms.

How the data was collected
To meet the aim of the study and answer the two research questions, two online questionnaires were designed.The first questionnaire, a Google Form that the participants have used before, was emailed (the link and pdf) to the directors of the three schools prior to the arrival of the Spanish teachers.This pre-visit questionnaire consisted of a series of eight qualitative questions exploring teacher agency and identity.Examples of questions included can be found in Appendix 8.
The lessons that Carla, Marta, and Andres taught in the three schools formed part of the final topic set by MASR to be taught to year 5 and 6 students during the last term.Lesson plans by Carla, Marta, and Andres can be found in Appendix 16.
After the visit, a Google form questionnaire with a mix of qualitative and quantitative questions, was emailed to the directors of the three schools for distribution (link and pdf).The themes for the five qualitative post-visit questions are in Appendix 9.The seven quantitative questions were Likert-scale in format, with one being the lowest value and five the highest, which can be found in Appendix 10.Kosara (2016) informs us that Likert scales while not overburdening participants, in this case, full-time teachers, allow quantitative estimates of subjective traits to be collected and they can be summarised and visualised to strengthen qualitative data collected (Jamieson, 2004).
To ensure that the pre-visit and post-visit questions were understood by the Albanian teachers-a check-up on my translation of the questions into Albanian was performed by the agency ´Altalingua´.The quality of each question and the translation was then pretested on two Albanian language speakers who were asked to speak out the thoughts that came into their minds relating to the questions they had just read.Using the input from the Albanian speakers the questions were fine-tuned and finalised in the Google Form (Appendix 4).

How the data was analysed
The responses to each question on the pre-visit questionnaire were first simplified (Appendix 5).To aid with data handling and data analysis, the pre-visit questionnaire data was ordered into the number of years of experience the teacher had.The simplified responses were then grouped using open coding into key themes which emerged such as ´professionalism´, ´passion´, ´methodologies´, ´children´, ´lesson´, and ´curriculum´.
After this first round of analysis, a constant comparative analysis was performed (Glaser, 1965) and commonalities were identified, these were developed into eight main themes enriched by the theoretical framework for the agency.A good example includes, ´communication´ and ´restriction´ which were linked to the main concept of autonomy since they involve the Albanian teachers' desire for freedom of expression in their profession.Appendix 11 shows the coding product.
For each question, a percentage frequency mention of the eight themes that emerged in the first round of coding of the answers had to be worked out.Appendix 12 shows the percentage frequency mention of the themes that came up from the pre-visit responses for each of the questions, while Appendix 13 shows the percentage frequency mention of the themes that came up from the post-visit responses.In the post-visit response, the Likert-scale question responses were analysed using basic SPSS descriptive statistics.Appendix 14 shows the SPSS analysis (graphs) of the post-visit Likert-scale questions.

Ethics and positionality
We remained conscious, critical, and transparent about our own political and epistemological alignment with the participants in this study to address the trustworthiness of the data collected (Denzin, 2017).We kept pragmatic and held on to the belief that there is not one single view that will emerge but many.Similarly, we kept in mind our role as researchers in this study, where Harding (1993) brings our attention to the process of conscientisation.It was key to have reflected on our beliefs and biases and reframed them with the participants through a process of firstly checking the questions to avoid bias and later in the meaning-making process to encourage the problematisation of my assumptions.In addition to the above, a list of a few points that had to be ethically considered can be found in Table 1.

Findings
In this study we organise the findings into four themes, 1) Albanian catholic primary school teacher identity; 2) tensions that arise through hybrid positioning because of the Spanish teacher visit; 3) the creation of learning spaces; and finally, 4) the role of the relationships and community in building hope in the Albanian education system.Through these themes, we aim to answer the two specific research questions and identify the impact the exchange programme had on the professional development of Albanian primary school teachers.All quotations presented in the sections to follow come from the pre-visit and the post-visit questionnaire results and the themes generated from the data analysis (Appendix 11, 12, and 13 for the themes generated).

Albanian catholic primary school teacher identity
From the responses gathered from the pre-visit questionnaire we see that in more than 70% of the responses (n33), participants associate ´professionalism´ and ´passion´ with their identity as a teacher, with both ´professionalism´ and ´passion´ being identified as two themes that make them unique in their profession, themes that set them apart from other teachers and themes that are therefore identified as strongpoints that the participants possess.
Professionalism by the Albanian teachers is seen as a form of ´sincerity´ in which to be a professional, you need to be 'serious´ in the profession and therefore ´win the respect though seriousness´.An underlying message that is clear is that to be ´successful´ in their profession, leads to the participants feeling ´valued´ in their profession, therefore leading to the establishment of a teacher identity that is unstable, where if a teacher is not being ´successful´, what this means for them is not explained, they are not valued.
The focus of MASR is on results and micro-control of schools and teachers, it's evident that for a school and a teacher to be valued as a professional by MASR they need to allow themselves to be micromanaged and therefore allow themselves to be graded by MASR as a success or failure.It appears that in part the Albanian teachers have accepted this identity bestowed on them by the requirements of MASR.Yet we see, in Albanian teachers identifying ´professional development´ and a desire for ´change´ and ´to learn´ a conflict between the MASR-bestowed teacher identity and personal teacher identity, that is deeply rooted in each teacher.A second dominant theme that emerges with respect to Albanian teacher identity is ´passion´.Albanian teachers express that they see their profession as a ´mission´ in which ´values´ play a critical role and its these values, especially ´faith´ that give them ´encouragement´ in their profession.´creativity´ sits in the realm of passion and is closely related to ´simplicity´ and it's in the ´simple´ approach to ´creativity´, often restricted by resources available to them, in which they aim to encounter the ´fun and enjoyment´ in their profession.Through this, we strengthen our view of hybridity in the Albanian teacher profession, 1) passion as a driving force for their professional identity in which teachers crave ´professional development´ and 2) the desire to ´change´ and ´learn´ versus the ´success or failure´ vision coming from the micromanagement of schools by MASR.

Tensions that arise through hybrid positioning
Tension could be identified between the participants' professional identity as well as constraints to their growth in their practice, with the participants identifying tension within pedagogical knowledge and the resources and curriculum that they have access to.The tension in the pedagogical knowledge is seen with reference to teaching methodologies and with reference to lesson organisation.The Albanian teachers identify clearly that there is a desire on their part to move away from ´traditional´ teaching methodologies which they identify as ´textbook driven´ to the use of more hands-on ´active approaches´ of teaching with a special desire on their behalf to have professional development on ´gamification´, ´group work´ and use of ´projects´.The tension arises because the understanding of ´group work´ and ´project work´ and ´gamification´ as required by MASR to be delivered by them, is not the same as what they observe ´group work´, ´project work´, and ´gamification´ to be from the Spanish teachers-the Albanian teachers explain that the Spanish teachers have helped them better understand ´group work´ and ´projects´.Giving an indication of confusion as to what their understanding of ´active methodologies´ is, this is also recognised in part by the Albanian teachers themselves.The Albanian teachers identify from the observations of active approaches used by the Spanish teachers, a ´personal aspect´ that is missing from the forms prescribed by the MASR, in that the emotions of the children in the active approach employed by the Spanish teachers take priority in which as they also explain it appears that ´virtues are also developed´ and so the role of the teacher changes in contradiction to that prescribed by MASR, from authoritarian to one driven by ´emotions and creativity´.
Tension arises additionally regarding the inflexibility of the curriculum; the Albanian teachers question why private schools in Spain can modify the curriculum in response to the needs of their students while in Albania as a private school, they are bound by the curriculum and the book editorials prescribed by the MASR.This questioning is seen as an internal conflict between what they as educators see as important in education and what MASR tells them to be important in education, what they as teachers have been led to believe ´project work´, ´group work´, and ´gamification´ entails and what the alternative view on those that they themselves observe in action.
There is evidence that the Albanian teachers are trying to challenge such tensions through their agency, with a number identifying in the post-visit questionnaire that after the Spanish teacher visit, they had made ´changes to the curriculum´ to make it more accessible for their students so that the children become the ´focus´ and the ´priority´ of what they do.

The creation of learning spaces
The participants see a need for dialogue regarding their local school community and the wider community their schools belong to, KKEKSH and MASR, with reference to the resources available to them as teachers but also regarding the curriculum and their focus on their students.They explain that they can offer richer opportunities, through a change in their approach to methodologies if technology, specifically Information Communication Technology (ICT), was available to them for use in their classroom, identifying the need for projectors and internet access, stressing the importance of creating ´special laboratories´ be it for the sciences or for modern foreign languages.This is of special interest because the lessons delivered by the visiting Spanish teachers did not use technology as such and this was recognised with teachers commenting on the ´simplicity´ of the lessons delivered by the Spanish teachers, with reference to the resources that they used.Why is technology then a focal point for the development of a learning space?It looks like technology or lack of technology is a point to focus frustration with the system-an identifiable solution or a quick fix, that does not ease the conflict in their hybrid identity but places the responsibility for the fix on someone else.Of special interest is that the quick fix solution is mentioned by teachers who have had more than 12 years of teaching experience and this view is not shared by the rest of the teachers who have a clear desire for reflection on their practice.Most teachers with one to 11 years of teaching experience comment on the necessity for reflection on their teaching practice with specific reference to the lesson organisation.The desire for ´reflection´ is highlighted in both the pre-and post-visit responses, suggesting that through reflection a positive working atmosphere is generated, allowing for growth in creativity and innovation in their pedagogical knowledge.
Participants identify that by providing space for reflection in their daily practice, the way they conceptualise their pedagogical knowledge changes, communication between staff creates space for the hybrid identity of the participants to be scrutinized and evaluated.The stress caused by the restrictions, inflexibility, and ongoing external demands makes it difficult for the creation of a learning space.This recognition can mean that, on the part of the Albanian teachers, the presence/development of a sense of belonging to their professional community and alongside that the development of a sense of agency in their profession, a possible movement towards a clear identity in education and them not being seen as empty vessels to be filled with instructions.

The role of relationships and community in building hope in the Albanian education system
One of the participants explains that ´there is a desire for us to move away from the rigid structure of teaching in quantity, towards a focus on quality´, a quality that another explains must have a focus on the correct use of active methodologies and a clear focus on ´values´.Another participant gives hope in that by ´continuing steadfastly on the path we have observed, with time we will have it just as easy to deliver an active education´, here we see the determination on the part of the Albanian teachers to continue ´steadfast´, the word used in Albanian is ´kembengulje´, which also signifies a degree of going against the ´generally accepted norm´.We also see in such responses, the participants writing in plural pronouns and in possessive plurals, particularly in the post-visit response showing community vision in their responses-highlighting a desire for collegial working, where the members have an active role and voice.This challenges the current ontological status of relationships in education in Albania moving away from the banking dynamics of the micromanagement of schools employed by MASR to creating a relationship grounded on collegiality and a desire to work toward change as a community, especially in curriculum reform.The visit by the Spanish teachers has given the participants hope that education in Albania can be different, valuing their community as a place for learning and development in personal identity and pedagogical knowledge.

"New experiences always bring change…As teachers, we have a few moments to reflect on
what happens in our schools.Their experience and the last moment when they presented themselves to us regarding the pastoral plan made us reflect a lot on the importance of the cooperation of our school community together with KEKSH for clarity in the future.We are all together and not alone."(Post visit response from one of the teachers) By valuing the importance of their position in their local community and as part of KEKSH the Albanian teachers are opening themselves to transformation, changing what it means to be a teacher in Albania-they have been made aware that differences are key to an education system.
"The visit was a special experience in many ways... Interested because each of the teachers had variety in the way they taught, yet all three worked in the same direction and passion.They had no barriers in the dialogue about their experiences in education."(Post visit response from one of the teachers) By having space to openly dialogue, without barriers, with colleagues professionally, the Albanian teachers have therefore identified a practice that may contribute to the development of a collective agency to challenge monolithic acting and ways, what is clear is not individual acts will not bring significant change but rather community efforts.

Discussion
Our aim was to explore the impact of an exchange program on the professional identity of Albanian primary school teachers.Holloway and Brass (2018) inform us that in neoliberal cultures the identity of a teacher is always defined and limited by others-in this study, we have shown that MARS plays a significant part in relation to teacher identity.The participants in this study with reference to their identity adopt hybrid positioning, and this itself is evidence of their desire for agency.The participants identified themselves in their approach to their profession with criteria used by MASR, while at the same time clearly seeking to adopt a uniqueness in their profession that went beyond the requirements of MASR, thus encountering tension with the boundaries MASR implements around the education system.What we see is a desire, as Moura (2021) describes, for the participants to transgress those boundaries, a desire to disrupt the unclear logic of the hierarchies of MASR and build relationships.
From the pre-visit results, we see that the participants are aware of their own hybridity, aware of what their identity is in relation to MASR and what their identity is as part of the catholic community KKEKSH.However, just like in Maciejewska, (2018) the participants in this study have enriched further the understanding of their identity which has led them to disorienting dilemmas and just as Mezirow (2000) explained new perspectives and schemes emerged appearing to be more open, reflective, and capable of change (Mezirow, 2000).This form of hybridity shows, as Moore (2008) highlights, that identity and agency are social constructs that complement each other and can result in social change.Dynamics that came into play in our participants can act as a guide for them to advance toward justice-orientated education.Our participants desire pedagogies reflecting the current cohorts of students that they are educating, to address the current unstable socio-political situation in their country that is resulting in an exodus of Albanians from their homeland.In doing so our participants creatively seek to move the boundaries.The participants through their pre-and post-visit responses, offer a clear desire for discourse in relation to teaching methodologies where they and future teachers can negotiate their ideas on teaching pedagogies without restrictions.Ball (2016) explains that notions such as these are a sight of power, therefore our participants through the study start to engage with practices that go against governing ideas on education, developing counternarratives that are based on dialogue and collaboration.
For the participants, the local community, their school, has started to serve them as a place for the creation of culture, where collegiality and dialogue replace orders.The desire for this community to flourish, confirms our participants' hope to challenge the individualistic neoliberal micromanagement that institutions such as MASR have sought to embed in our participants as their core identity.
The participants in this study, having been exposed to different views and practices in education, have aligned themselves further with those views and practices disrupting hegemonic practices by demonstrating a desire to and that indeed they have taken steps to incorporate active methodologies, assessment approaches, and curriculum adaptation, to name a few.The participants see that teaching means helping the student to flourish in the various stages of life.Education is seen as more than just filling empty vessels but as a dynamic and integral process, which starts from a received origin and points to an end greater than oneself.
There is an alliance at hand, the participants have seen through the visit that education is never given alone.The teacher educates the alliance; what he educates is living, and acting together.Our participants realise, like Bakx et al. (2016) that there is flexibility in their local community that allows them to live out their agency and vision of education.These localized changes are essential to ensure that the teachers do not lose focus on the potential of the activity to transform, Shor and Freire (1987) confirm that it's through daily acts that culture is changed.Individual agency is not enough and can lead to stress, for this reason, the focus should be on the local community, or the alliance formed between the members within it.
The fear that the Spanish teachers would in some way be put on a pedestal by the Albanian teachers with them seeing themselves as ´lesser´ when compared to the Spanish teachers, was proved wrong.Rather than seeing themselves ´lesser´ to the Spanish teachers, the Albanian teachers take pride in their aspirations of where they would like to be in the future, knowing the state of the Albanian education system was left by the fall of the dictator Hoxha in 1993.The Albanian teachers see hope as one of the key gains from the experience -hope that through dialogue and the building of local community, they can break the hold that MASR has on their profession.This way they very much in the manner described by Fraire in the pedagogy of the oppressed, can liberate their profession and gain the agency that is required for the education that they deliver to touch on and address the key issues in Albania.

Conclusions, limitations, and the future
The first fruit of this study is to attempt to address the gap in our knowledge of Catholic Albanian primary teacher identity and to briefly show the opportunities for identity development that a teacher exchange program offers.From this case study, we demonstrate that the tension that arises in the hybrid identities of the participants strengthens their individual agency within the neoliberal micromanaged education system they find themselves in.For these schoolteachers, there is a need to work on local dialogue firstly within the school and by creating local communities, in both cases to allow different knowledge and expertise to promote the creation of collaborative pedagogical knowledge.The participants in this study need to act on their agency and insist on their right to do so to strengthen their unique identity.
The limitation of this study is primarily the overall scope, this is a single case study looking at one unique experience across three private Catholic primary schools.Although generalisation was never the purpose of the study, it could be of benefit to broaden our picture, to look at replicating this experience in the Albanian public education sector.In doing so, a more comprehensive picture of the situation can be built up.Nevertheless, this case study gives hints that for Catholic schools in Albania, it is imperative to provide professional formation focusing on the key aspects of professional identity and building up agency.
Future research on this area needs more time, and a longer exchange, as well as relying on different methodologies for data collection, post visit group discussions and possibly interviews could further enhance such studies, and confirm the effectiveness of such a visit, post-visit observation would be ideal.Questions that presented themselves during this case study relate to the viewpoints of students and parents about teacher identity and pedagogical knowledge.In aiming to answer these further questions I would hope to contribute to making education pedagogy in Albania more inclusive, social, diverse, and just.

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Joseph Xhuxhi, Carmen Romero-García A CASE STUDY EXPLORATION OF ALBANIAN PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER EXPERIENCE WHEN VISITED BY SPANISH PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS Appendix 2: Universal Email communication from MASR to school giving instructions on tasks for completion or direct interference on daily running of school Pre-visit and Post-visit questions Pre-visit questionnaire Joseph Xhuxhi, Carmen Romero-García A CASE STUDY EXPLORATION OF ALBANIAN PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER EXPERIENCE WHEN VISITED BY SPANISH PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS Creative Commons licensing terms Author(s) will retain the copyright of their published articles agreeing that a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) terms will be applied to their work.Under the terms of this license, no permission is required from the author(s) or publisher for members of the community to copy, distribute, transmit or adapt the article content, providing a proper, prominent and unambiguous attribution to the authors in a manner that makes clear that the materials are being reused under permission of a Creative Commons License.Views, opinions and conclusions expressed in this research article are views, opinions and conclusions of the author(s).Open Access Publishing Group and European Journal of Education Studies shall not be responsible or answerable for any loss, damage or liability caused in relation to/arising out of conflicts of interest, copyright violations and inappropriate or inaccurate use of any kind content related or integrated into the research work.All the published works are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).