Fractured allegiances: teacher identity, curriculum policy, and ideological negotiation in Iranian English language education

Curriculum policies are enacted not only through official texts but also through teachers’ interpretation of competing ideological, pedagogical, and professional expectations. This qualitative study examines how Iranian English language teachers experience and negotiate these tensions within an ideologically contested curriculum context. Using narrative inquiry and visual identity mapping, data were collected from 18 EFL teachers in public and private educational settings through semi-structured interviews, critical incident reflections, and identity mapping activities. Thematic narrative analysis identified four interconnected dimensions of teachers’ experiences: fragmented professional identity, strategic policy enactment through adaptation, emotional labour and moral tension, and reflective reconstruction of professional purpose. Integrating policy enactment theory, teacher identity scholarship, discourse-oriented perspectives on ideological dimensions of language education, and emotional labor research, the study distinguishes between fracturing as the curriculum-mediated process through which competing ideological, pedagogical, ethical, and professional commitments are brought into tension and fractured allegiances as the condition that may result when teachers’ attempts to reconcile these commitments remain incomplete. The findings demonstrate that curriculum is actively constituted through teachers’ identity work and professional judgement rather than policy compliance alone. Although situated in Iran, the study offers a conceptual framework with implications for curriculum policy, teacher education, and professional support in ideologically complex educational settings.