Torn between socio-political mandates and professional identity: Teachers’ collaborative reflection on their identity tensions

Abstract

Although the construction of language teacher professional identity is situated in a social, political, and ideological context, scant attention has been paid to tensions emerging from the nexus between identity construction and these contextual variables. To address this gap, this study drew on English language teachers’ collaborative reflection to provide an emic perspective on the role of the socio-cultural context in the formation of teachers’ professional identity. Eight novice and experienced English language teachers participated in two separate collaborative reflection panels (four teachers in each panel) to reflect on the role of the socio-cultural context in Iran in their professional identity construction and identity tensions. Analysis of teachers’ reflection showed that three sets of interrelated socio-cultural variables impacted the participants’ professional identity tensions: (1) macro state-level variables; (2) meso institutional-level variables; and (3) micro individual-level variables. The findings also indicated that the participating teachers took different positions to resolve the tensions they experienced between their personal ideologies and external expectations at these three levels. The main implication of this study is for institutional administrators and teacher educators to devise plans to lessen the degree of tensions that teachers might experience in their process of professional identity construction and to afford them the agency to resolve these tensions.