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Thai Female EFL Teachers’ Professional Identity Negotiation after PhD: A Critical–Dialogical Self Approach

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https://doi.org/10.54963/jqre.i46.2230
Tian, W., & Lin, H. (2026). Thai Female EFL Teachers’ Professional Identity Negotiation after PhD: A Critical–Dialogical Self Approach. Journal of Qualitative Research in Education, (46), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.54963/jqre.i46.2230
Issue 46 (2026): in progress
Copyright (c) 2026 Wenwen Tian, Hai Lin
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Authors

  • Wenwen Tian

    School of Foreign Languages, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710129, China
  • Hai Lin

    Department of Language and Intercultural Communication, International College for Sustainability Studies, Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok 10110, Thailand

Received: 27 August 2025; Revised: 24 October 2025; Accepted: 13 January 2026; Published: 2 February 2026

Teacher professional identity (TPI) has become central to understanding teachers’ agency, emotions, and career development, yet existing studies remain largely Western-centric and overlook how gendered hierarchies shape identity in Asian higher education. Little research has examined how female English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers with PhDs in Thailand negotiate their professional selves amid prestige-driven and patriarchal institutions. This study investigates how Thai female EFL teachers with PhDs negotiate professional identities within the intersecting pressures of teaching, research, gender expectations, and hierarchical academic systems. Adopting a critical–dialogical self approach that integrates dialogical self theory (DST) with a feminist perspective, we conceptualize teacher identity as dialogical, relational, and shaped by power-laden structures. Drawing on narrative inquiry supported by corpus-informed thematic analysis, life stories of two Thai female EFL academics were analyzed through the lenses of self-, other-, and structural positioning. Findings reveal hybrid “I-positions” (e.g., educator, mentor, supervisor-researcher) negotiated within institutional hierarchies that reward productivity but undervalue care work. Tensions of role overload, emotional labor, and neoliberal accountability shaped participants’ self-efficacy and resilience. The study extends DST by theorizing professional identity as affective, relational, and structurally embedded, urging institutional policies that recognize hybrid roles and foster equitable, emotionally sustainable academic cultures in non-Western contexts.

Keywords:

Teacher Professional Identity (TPI) Thai EFL Teachers Critical-Dialogical Self Approach Narrative Inquiry Corpus-Informed Thematic Analysis

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