Walking Tall, Teaching Strong, and Being Confident: Exploring Teachers’ Self-Concept

Teachers' self-concept plays a critical role in shaping their professional identity, emotional well-being, interpersonal relationships, and instructional effectiveness. Despite the growing body of research on teacher self-concept, existing studies have predominantly employed quantitative approaches, providing limited understanding of how teachers subjectively experience and construct their sense of self. This study explored the lived experiences, emotional responses, and personal realizations of public elementary school teachers regarding their self-concept within personal and professional contexts. Guided by Self-Determination Theory, Job Demands-Resources Theory, Super's Vocational Development Theory, and Self-Discrepancy Theory, the study employed a qualitative phenomenological research design. Ten public elementary school teachers from Upper Tambler 1 Central Elementary School in General Santos City, Philippines, were selected through criterion-based purposive sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews and analyzed using Colaizzi's phenomenological method. The analysis generated three major domains of teacher self-concept: perceived self-concept, emotional responses, and personal realizations, encompassing nineteen emergent themes. Findings revealed that teachers perceived themselves as professionally respected, adaptively resilient, prosocially inclined, socially responsive or withdrawn, emotionally self-regulated, and health-conscious. These self-perceptions elicited both positive and negative emotional responses, including pride, confidence, contentment, compassion, dismay, and emotional sensitivity. Furthermore, participants realized the importance of interpersonal connectedness, growth orientation, emotional balance, professional competence, and self-discipline, while also acknowledging experiences of low self-efficacy and physical overextension. The findings underscore the dynamic and multifaceted nature of teachers' self-concept and highlight the need for institutional support systems that foster teacher well-being, professional resilience, and holistic development.