configuration of language teachers’ identity and their resolution strategies for teachers’ imposition

Teacher-others relationship is one of the main features of teacher identity. as an aspect of this relationship, in some educational contexts, teachers experience imposition inside and outside their workplace. identity conflict resolution is an essential stage in teachers identity construction. as there seems to be no tool to measure resolution strategies for overcoming the imposed identity, we developed an 18-item questionnaire based on a previously validated imposed identity questionnaire. it included four options of resolution strategies for coping with imposed identity adopted by four identity configurations of teachers, i.e rebellious, submissive, harmonious, and duplicitous. the analysis of the data which were collected from 42 efl teachers through the resolution strategies questionnaire indicated the dominant types of configuration the teachers projected in coping with mandates by families, colleagues, and learners’ parents as three sources of imposition. faced with institute families imposition, most teachers manifested a submissive identity. to deal with colleagues imposition, the teachers tended to be mostly rebellious. as to learners’ parents-driven imposition, the teachers opted for harmonious strategies to resolve most of the impositions. the findings indicate how identity may be imposed, changed, and managed. families, colleagues, learners’ parents, and efl teachers need to consider how identity conflict resolution can lead to a desirable efl environment for teaching.