A Data-Driven Model of Language Teacher Autonomy in Iran s Public Schools

The present article tries to come up with a model of teacher autonomy in Iran. The study uses grounded theory approach to develop a model out of the data collected. The participants of this study are 20 experienced language teachers who in Iran public schools. Purposive sampling procedure has been used to select those teachers who are as representative of the population as possible and serve our purpose well. The participants were interviewed using two procedures. One was focus group and the other was individual interview. Their interviews were recorded and then transcribed. The codification phases of grounded theory including open, axial and selective codlings were applied. Each phase led to some categories which then were subsumed under bigger categories in later phases. In the last phase the model developed. “Tradition” and “regulation” were two main components of the model which affect language teacher autonomy in Iran. “Personal features” was another component of the model which acts as a mediator meaning that it can affect the way the two other components mentioned. This model is a contextsensitive one and can be applied in different setting to identify factors that hinder or facilitate language teacher autonomy.