“They Now Respect Me and Send Me to the Best Schools!”: Identity Construction of an Iranian EFL Teacher

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article presents the findings related to the identity construction processes of an Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher in the context of Iran. Data were collected using a life history approach with a critical-event focus and analyzed via social ecology of identity (Wenger, 1998). The findings indicated that the participating teacher’s identities are highly socially constructed and constrained with no room for personal agency. The findings suggest a different resolution as a narrative of the often-untold experiences of many teachers, which focus on inspirational stories of change, where teachers develop an identity that challenges or reworks hegemonic structures that previously constrained their agency as teachers. The authors indicate that the teacher’s agency has been mainly enacted in a schooled way shaped through the years of apprenticeship to teaching. They further illustrate that boundary crossing and adopting a brokering role are not as promising as they may be in contexts where different communities impose and make available almost similar sets of values and communication repertoires. Drawing on the data, the authors also argue that the difference between peripherality and marginality does not seem to hold valid wholesale in the EFL context of Iran.