Teacher Agency in the Context of Curriculum Reform in the Iranian Educational System

In line with the perspective that teachers are the most significant agents in language policy enactment, teacher agency in general and the pivotal role of agency in curriculum reforms, in particular, have received a surge of attention in recent years. This study aims to investigate the way a group of experienced EFL teachers exerted agency in the context of curriculum reform in Iran. Narrative enquiry was utilized to explore teachers’ agency by drawing on the ecological approach proposed by Priestley, Biesta, and Robinson (2015). Seven teachers (aged between 30 to 45 years) of English as a foreign language with more than 10 years of teaching experience at state high-schools participated in this study. Snowball sampling was utilized for selecting the teachers who had been involved in teaching both old and new books, designed by the Iranian Ministry of Education, for over five years. The results indicated that the teachers construct agency in order to cope with the changes in the curriculum by adhering to many past experiences, creating an image of the future, and enacting the curriculum despite the challenges. This study also highlighted the importance of teacher agency in professional development and improvement of education and learning in the time of curriculum reform.