To be Heard,to be Seen,to Matter: Consequences of/for self in utilizing one's narrative

This self-study describes the development and use in a preservice literacy course of the first author's narrative of her own schooling. The introduction to that narrative is included in this paper. The full text of the narrative also describes the impact of school readiness, resource placement, transience, poverty, and teachers' responses and expectations on my school experiences and my sense of self. Methods of data collection included students' anonymous responses to the narrative, in-class discussion, students' final course papers, my research journal, field notes, and retrospective re-analysis. The perspective of a colleague who is serving as a critical friend on my journey is incorporated in the paper as dialogical insets interrogating my practices and interpretations. Writing, analyzing, and using the narrative in my teaching served to clarify my understanding of how my childhood and schooling shape my current work. Sharing it with students was built on the belief that doing so would encourage their development of understanding for students who have histories and backgrounds unlike their own.     

The power of one? Conditions which challenge managerial professional development practices

This paper draws upon Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, capital and field to better understand and appreciate the conditions which encouraged the productive professional development (PD) practices of one very capable teacher working in a secondary school in the British Midlands. Rather than celebrating this teacher's practices and perspective as evidence of the capacity of the heroic individual to overcome sometimes adverse circumstances, this paper reveals how the experiences of this teacher can be understood as an instance of the socially situated self, engaged by and engaging in an alternative politics to that associated with more managerial conceptions of teacher learning. This research calls for a cautious approach to those renderings of educational practice which construe the creative potential of the habitus, without sufficient regard for the actual conditions which contribute towards this creativity. In this way, this paper is presented not as an example of how one teacher overcame significant barriers to substantive learning practices – as a morality tale for other, individual educators to emulate – but as a provocation to suggest how some teachers' access to professional/community resources helps them sustain a clear focus on substantive learning.     

Research and the ambiguity of reflexivity and ethical practice

This paper examines the methodological dilemmas associated with analytical framing as an aspect of the research process. Doing qualitative research potentially changes a researcher – changes their sense of self, who they think they are, who they want to become. The paper examines the ethical dilemma of what that change might mean – for the project, the researcher and the participants. Would respondents be so open if they were that aware the research(er) potentially could change during the performance of the research project? What are the implications, if any, of engaging respondents with the intention of telling their story as a narrative inquiry, then analysing the data through a feminist post-structuralist lens? How does a researcher honour the perspectives of the participants, while simultaneously bringing to bear the critique and understanding provided by employing a post-structuralist lens? The paper pays particular attention to the interactive interview, as it generated possibilities for a researcher to establish a level of trust and rapport such that (emotional) stories could be heard and then later, represented as interpretations of the researcher.     

小学教师实践性知识发展的叙事研究

教师实践性知识研究已成为研究者关注的热点,运用教育叙事,以一位小学教师为个案,从自我知识、学科教学知识、学习者的知识和情境知识等方面展示其实践性知识发展的真实状况。个人的教育信念、原有的受教育背景和生活经验、教学反思的意识、学习方式的转变和学校文化的创设等是影响小学教师实践性知识形成与发展的深层次原因。研究启示,教师实践性知识的生成离不开日常教学生活、教学反思以及教师学习共同体的建立。     

Teacher–writer–crafter–maker: an exploration of how making mattered for one writing teacher

This qualitative case study documents a secondary English teacher's making, writing and teaching. The focal teacher engaged in diverse making practices – including composing, crafting and digital fabrication. She also participated in a National Writing Project (NWP) Summer Institute that focused on both teacher writing and digital composing. Data include observations at this NWP Project Summer Institute and in the focal teacher's English classroom, as well as interviews and artefact collection related to her making practices. The findings describe how this teacher's making mattered for her understandings of writing and for her teaching (or not). The case offers insights into why it may be important to cultivate educator making, as well as potential tensions between experiencing making and incorporating it into writing pedagogy. Ultimately, it contributes to writing research interested in examining how various forms of production and making are enmeshed.     

Japan's teacher acculturation: critical analysis through comparative ethnographic narrative

Cross‐cultural teaching and research in Canada and Japan is reported. Ethnographic narrative methods were used to examine Japan's teacher acculturation. Canada's teachers are largely required to work in isolation, to learn their practice through trial and error. There is little provision for mentorship and insufficient time to reflect. In contrast, Japan's teachers have opportunities for reflection, collegiality and collaboration. Moreover, effective induction practices have evolved gradually, becoming a tacit part of teaching culture. Japan's teacher acculturation is characterized by significant teacher relationships; leadership and guidance; and further cultivated through professional development. However, undeveloped pre‐service programmes, one‐way, ‘top–down’ pedagogical exchanges, and ineffective mentors are contentious issues, hampering teacher education reforms. Nevertheless, Japanese induction practices challenge us to ameliorate teacher education to focus more on the needs of beginning teachers.     

A narrative inquiry into the fostering of a teacher-principal’s best-loved self in an online teacher community in China

This study revolves around an organically lived online community of Chinese elementary teachers. The teachers shared their reflective journals and engaged in conversations with the facilitators and also with their peers. Following one participant’s postings over a span of thirteen months helped the research team to narratively explore how the teacher, through reflections and interactions with his other fellow community members, refined his personal practical knowledge and cultivated his best-loved self as a teacher-principal in a rural school in China that lacked learning resources. Highlighted in the discussions are how the participant integrated his personal being with his professional being and eventually became the teacher he wanted to be. This research study adds to the literature about teachers as agents of change. This knowledge contribution, among others related to technology, shows how professional development and the development of teacher identity can be promoted in online teacher knowledge communities. Implications for teacher education are also discussed.     

Educational narrative inquiry through design-based research: designing digital storytelling to make alternative knowledge visible and actionable

This paper describes the conceptualisation and appropriation of narrative in the design of digital storytelling technology (DST), to augment reflective practice among Irish pre-service teachers. Reflective practice remains a predominant professional formation component of programmes of teacher education. In this key developmental activity, teacher education traditionally privileges written reflections, e.g. pro forma post-lesson evaluations and essays. Our aim in this research was to supplement, not supplant, these important written reflective modalities, and by doing so, open up a wider set of possibilities for using narrative and technology to support creative, potentially transformative reflection on practice. We have been inspired significantly in this DST work by Bruner’s ([2002]. Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) functional view of narrative inquiry – that storytelling serves as the principal, foundational means by which we form our identities, relate to others and make sense of our place in the world. We thus sought to explore how innovative storytelling designs, combined with, and augmented by digital technology, might afford new narrative inquiry possibilities for pre-service students to conceptualise, create and collaborate in their early-career, reflective practices. This paper presents R-NEST, the educational design we developed in a principled and participatory fashion over 3 years, collaboratively with 323 student teachers. We trace the narrative of the development and refinement of the bespoke R-NEST design, illustrated with analysis of an exemplar, student-designed digital story. The paper concludes with insights regarding the creative, reflective use of DST, suggesting potentially wide scope for this mode of narrative technology in education.     

Research Fictions: Arts-Informed Narratives That Disrupt the Authority of the Text

In this paper I examine the dilemma faced by reflexive narrative inquirers who write in the first-person “I” while advocating for a postmodern reading of the “self.” This paper asks the question: How can the reflexive educational researcher craft a research narrative that, on the one hand, strives for self-presence, while on the other hand, denies the transparency of language? I discuss current post-structuralist critiques of educational research rhetoric, and extend the critique to narrative research, suggesting that an arts-informed approach to narrative allows researchers to disrupt the authority of their text. I explore the use of a specific fictionalizing technique – the unreliable narrator – to assist readers in critically deciphering reflexive research narratives.     

Stories return personal narrative ways of knowing to the professional development of doctoral supervisors

Storytellers have always known that there is more to a story than ‘just a good yarn’. It is through stories that individuals construct and reconstruct their sense of self as they learn ‘to be’ in the world. Learning through stories is common across a number of professional contexts. However, storied approaches are under-utilised in supervisor professional development programs. This paper argues that telling, receiving, reading, writing and re-writing stories can open to doctoral supervisors a way to negotiate the chaotic pedagogy of becoming and being a doctoral supervisor. Two examples of storytelling – interactive telling and reading of stories of research student experience and supervisor autobiographical writing – illustrate how the art of storytelling can return personal narrative ways of knowing to professional development in today's performance-driven higher degree by research context.     

Education and self‐change

This paper explores three psychological theories of self – Kenneth Gergen's theory of the crystallised self, Carol Dweck's theory of the incremental self and William Swann's theory of the homeostatic self – for their ability to account for personal change in general, and radical self‐change in particular. Special attention is paid to their educational implications. The overall conclusion is that whereas all three theories provide important insights into self‐change, none of them gives a fully satisfying account.     

从“叙事探究”到“叙事行动研究”

本专题除了对主题的介绍性论文,还收录了三篇一线教师的叙事,均来自北京教科院德育中心举办的、为期一年的第三期教育行动研究工作坊中的叙事行动研究班。作为指导教师,笔者目睹了一大批教师在做叙事行动研究中的专业成长,这三篇文章就是其中的代表。本文意在介绍为什么将叙事探究转换为叙事行动研究,这两种路径有什么区别,教师们在叙事行动研究中获得了什么成长以及这种成长的发生需要什么条件。通过分析教师的参与过程和研究结果发现,相比叙事探究,叙事行动研究在教师公开发声、改变心智模式的基础之上,还需要触及学校场域中人们惯习的改变,其风险和挑战更大。通过本次工作坊的初步尝试,教师对叙事主题的认识更加准确,对主题的反思更加深刻,减少了自己的自责和内疚感,而且能够采取行动改变现状。促使教师如此成长的条件包括教师敢于暴露自己的"顽症",创设安全、开放的学习氛围,及时分享相关理论,形成相互支持的学习共同体以及获得学校的理解和支持。教育行政部门和教育研究者应关注教师的专业成长,为诸如叙事行动研究之类的教师专业发展活动提供更加有力的支持。     

Teachers reflecting on their work: articulating what is said about what is done

Teachers' written reflections on their work, which report on a change in their practice, were the object of this research. Taking teachers' articulation of their plans and actions in teacher journals as our source, this study's aim is twofold: (1) to describe how teacher reflect in a self‐initiated and non‐framed way on their own practice, and (2) to review teacher self generated reflections in reference to models of reflection. In this way, we tried to disclose what precisely teachers write (said) when reflecting on their work (did) in order to appreciate their way of describing what matters in their work; and position this in reference to models that conceptualise (“talk”) on how to actualise (‘walk’) reflection. This ‘double’ articulation of reflection is gauged in two ways, i.e., on: a) completeness, that is, whether it includes relevant components of reflection (models) to be found in the literature, and on b) recursiveness, that is, whether the written account gives evidence of an integrated cyclical, i.e., recursive process of re‐view, which appraises and looks back on what has been accomplished.

The results show that teachers do not work along the lines identified in current reflection models (i.e. providing clear problem definition, searching for evidence, planning for change, and reviewing plans). Instead, many teachers use a narrative and valuing appraisal of their accomplishments; not so much cautiously reviewing their actions but prospectively commenting on plans and solutions for future action. The data lead us to be cautious about the prominence of reflection models as advocated in the literature to be applied to teachers' written accounts of their practice.     

Trauma narratives and nomos in teacher education

The present article draws on data from a three-year study of pedagogy in teacher education that attempts to disrupt normative structures of reading and being in the teacher education classroom. The author uses Bourdieu’s work to emphasize the ways in which academic fields become ruled by unspoken rules and practices – “nomos” – and demonstrates a use of trauma narratives in teacher education that can disrupt such unspoken rules and practices. The article challenges taken-for-granted assumptions in teacher education that students must be positioned as future teachers; that reading educational research and texts should be a priority; that writing assignments should be privileged; and that a cognitive approach to learning in teacher education should be privileged.     

The honourable road and its impact on teacher practice: an analysis of China's national honour system in cultivating professional development

China's national teacher honour system, initiated in 1949, is designed to recognise the academic and pedagogical performance of individual teachers and professional collectives at national, provincial, municipal, and school-based levels. This study employs grounded theory analysis to examine the phenomenon of China's teacher honour system by analysing documents, narrative stories of 11 award recipients and five non-recipients, and interviews with four government officials who manage the system. The paper discusses sociocultural aspects of this honour system by exploring the impact of three types of professional honours on teacher professional development. This system aims to balance government leadership in conferring honour with individual pursuit of professional development in one's local setting. Contextualised in a Confucian culture, the teachers immersed in this honour system benefit from collegial support in engaging in professional growth activities. Challenges with this system include the need to enhance teacher efficacy by engaging teachers in shaping the policy, as well as the possibility of political – rather than professional – criteria determining honour conferral, discouraging rigorous pursuit of professional growth.     

‘Radically different learning’: implementing sustainability pedagogy in a university peer mentor program

Framed in Michele Foucault's theories of discipline and technologies of the self, this paper explores the possibilities for teaching and researching across disciplinary boundaries within the academy. In Foucault's studies of systems of thought, he conceptualized practices – like sexuality – to be instances of what is possible to be, think, and do within a historical moment. In the ethnographic study reported on in this paper, we examined perceptions and practices of discipline-based academics seeking to work across traditional scholarly boundaries as instances of what was possible to be, think, and do in transdisciplinary teaching and research in higher education. Connecting transdisciplinary knowledge production with possibilities for critically engaging with sustainability as a social movement and imperative, we identify questions about and the promise of higher education as a place where this work can be done.     

Diverse experiences of women leading in higher education: locating networks and agency for leadership within a university context in Papua New Guinea

The ways in which women deliberately press back against practices of oppression and demonstrate agency in higher education institutions are highly contextual and culturally bound. The formal and informal networks that women develop and maintain are important elements of generating agency and enhancing women's access to and opportunities for leadership. This article presents a case study from research that explored women's leadership experiences in a higher education context in the Pacific Islands – Papua New Guinea. Situated within a feminist poststructural methodology, the research examined women's experiences of leadership and considered aspects that influenced women's access to formal leadership roles. The findings illustrated that the women faced numerous barriers to formal leadership opportunities. A range of culturally and contextually located approaches supported women to demonstrate agency with regard to their own leadership development and practice. This research highlighted the importance of considering the relationship between networks and agency and the impact of associated cultural and contextual practices within organisations, providing insights into the culturally located complexities of women's leadership in higher education contexts.     

The ethical claim of partiality: practical reasoning,the discipline,and teacher education

Practical reasoning refers to a teacher's capacity to discern particulars and make wise judgements about how to act in pedagogical situations. But how do teachers know what is right? How are teachers' preferences to be grounded and their choices justified? I explore the disciplines as one source of moral perception. Assuming that narrative unities underscore the coherence and continuity of an individual's experience, I generated data in the context of a 2‐year teacher education programme. The case study of an aspiring teacher of secondary school language arts illustrates how the intellectual virtues of a discipline can influence a student teacher's practical reasoning. I conclude that teacher educators must attend to the complex ways in which a prospective teacher's prior discipline may influence aspiring teachers' orientations to experience, their consideration of educational ends, and, finally, their characters.     

Knowing we are White: narrative as critical praxis

A critical concern in preparing teachers for urban schools is helping them make sense of race, identity and racism in schools. Teacher education programs struggle with how to address these issues in classes of primarily White students. Through a document analysis, the present study highlights?how teacher educators can use narrative – particularly autobiographies – to help understand the racial and cultural consciousness of White teachers. Narrative construction?provides a method to highlight how White teachers understand their identities and how Whiteness functions in society. Places of resistance, and stories yet untold, are also explored as a teacher educator looks to refine her own practice.     

Judging Teachers: Foucault,governance and agency during education reforms

Over a decade after publication of Thinking Again: Education After Postmodernism (1998) contention still emerges among Foucaultians over whether discursively made‐up things really exist, and whether removal of the constituent subject leaves room for agency within techniques of caring for the self. That these questions are kept alive shows that some readers have not rethought Foucault, finding what possibly comes after postmodernism. Using Wittgenstein to ‘reciprocally illuminate’ Foucault (after Tully and Marshall), I open teacher inspection and reforms to problematization, as relations to bedrock rules governing games of truth. ‘How, upon entering classrooms, do inspectors know “teaching” is taking place and not crazy and fuzzy things in its name?’ Taking up Hirst's vexing question, I move beyond liberal‐analytic concept‐mapping and neo‐liberal individualism to more fully assay the political ground for judging teaching practices through genealogy. Epistemological, political and ethical concerns intersect as we approach the problem through Foucault's three axes of an historical‐ontology of the present: knowledge(s), power relations, and arts of the self. Drawing on recent Governmentality Studies in Education (Peters ., 2009), we aver the impasses of postmodern relativism while finding limited ranges of agency along each axis, as teachers practice freedoms by critiquing and renegotiating rules.