Overcoming barriers and reconstructing identity: a narrative of professional identity formation and crisis among rural teachers

This study explores the formation, crisis, and erosion of professional identity in a primary school teacher working in underprivileged rural areas of Iran. In dominant Iranian discourses, leaving the teaching profession is often framed as personal failure or insufficient resilience. Drawing on a single-case narrative inquiry and a three-dimensional approach to examining teachers’ lived experiences across time, social contexts, and professional settings, this study examines the experiences of “Jahan,” a primary school teacher who left the profession after six years of teaching in marginalized rural communities. The analysis traces his identity trajectory from childhood and schooling through his professional life, revealing three interrelated phases: damaged identity, identity crisis, and identity failure. Findings show that this trajectory was shaped by double marginalization, as well as by systemic, cultural, and social constraints, including authoritarian leadership and institutional pressures. Rather than signaling individual failure, leaving teaching emerges as an act of identity preservation in response to conditions that undermined professional dignity and agency. The study calls for more context-sensitive support policies and the creation of identity-safe spaces that sustain teachers’ professional identity in rural settings.