Teacher Professional Identity: A Study of Key Influential Factors

This chapter presents the theoretical foundations of my PhD study, which explored Iranian EFL teachers’ professional identity during the COVID-19 pandemic. It critically reviews four major theoretical frameworks and assesses their relevance and limitations in explaining how teacher identity is constructed and reshaped in times of disruption. Following comparative analysis, Day et al.’s (2006) framework of teacher identity is identified as the most appropriate lens due to its integration of personal and professional dimensions, responsiveness to crisis contexts, and suitability for mixed-methods inquiry. The chapter also demonstrates the conceptual application of this framework, illustrating how personal dispositions such as self-efficacy, motivation, commitment, job satisfaction, and agency interact with contextual influences across macro, meso, and micro levels to shape teachers’ identities. By linking internal dispositions to broader structural factors, the framework provides an empirically grounded model for investigating teacher identity reconstruction during crises and contributes to broader discussions on language teacher identity in changing educational landscapes.