Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
SYSTEM, cilt.138, sa.April, ss.12-30, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
Understanding teacher idealism is increasingly important as global educational reforms, accountability pressures, and shifting professional expectations reshape how teachers sustain their values and ethical commitments. This study introduces and validates the Teacher Idealism Scale (TIS), a theoretically grounded instrument developed to conceptualize and measure teacher idealism as a multidimensional component of teacher identity. Informed by sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978) and poststructuralist perspectives (Foucault, 1980; 1983), idealism is reconceptualized as a layered, context-responsive orientation encompassing moral aspiration, professional values, and reflective agency. A comprehensive item pool representing six theorized dimensions was administered to a national sample of 856 English language teachers in Türkiye. Through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA), a six-factor structure emerged: Ethos, Ideal-Self Schema, Enacted Identity, Professional Cognition, Disciplinary Knowledge, and Axiomatic Frame, demonstrating robust psychometric properties (α = .79-.84; CR = .79-.86; AVE = .51-.62). Descriptive findings revealed generally high levels of idealism, with significant differences across gender, educational background, teaching experience, and institutional setting. Results affirm teacher idealism as a theoretically coherent and empirically measurable identity dimension. The study offers practical implications for teacher education and professional development, proposing avenues to embed ethical and aspirational dimensions into reflective practice. The TIS contributes to both the conceptual advancement and methodological tooling of identity research, supporting values-based pedagogy and critical agency in diverse educational contexts with a ratio of 65.47 of the variance in explaining teacher idealism.