Managing agency and urgency

Abstract Student injury incidents serve as institutional nexuses where health emergencies intersect with peer conflicts, requiring teachers to negotiate the competing demands of medical immediacy and moral culpability. Drawing on conversation analysis of audio-recorded student incident calls between teachers and parents, this study investigates how teachers navigate these challenging scenarios through the systematic management of agency and urgency . Analysis reveals two distinct yet interrelated patterns in teachers’ reporting practices. First, teachers treat agency (injurer) and urgency (injured student) as discrete components linked to responsibility attribution; they systematically background both elements when reporting to injured students’ parents while foregrounding them in communications with injurers’ parents. Second, the initial attenuation of urgency, while serving to mitigate conflict, necessitates subsequent upgrades to secure immediate involvement from injured students’ parents. These findings illuminate how teachers’ institutional practices systematically prioritize conflict mediation over medical urgency.