Chapter 3 Research methodology
3.5 Developing a framework for analysing the narratives: a multi-layered analysis and
Chapter 3 Research methodology
The above SMS reveals that the near-death experience prompted the participant to reconsider aspects of her story that she had shared with me. It provoked her to rework her meanings of self, of others and of her practice as a teacher-learner. Allowing teachers in this study to change aspects of their stories, to add or delete sections, gave them “authorship”
over their stories.
The final narratives were also given to the research participants for their comments.
The final draft was peer reviewed by two critical readers to ensure rigour and believability.
Both suggested changes that should be made and posed challenges to my interpretations, which I had to defend or justify. After reviewing the comments from the critical readers and the research participants I made the final changes to the narratives.
3.5 Developing a framework for analysing the narratives: a multi-layered
Chapter 3 Research methodology
Below is a table illustrating the layers of analysis and interpretation that will be used in this study:
Lens 1 Restorying of field texts – the
self through story A reconstruction of the teachers’ critical moments
Lens 2 The teacher-learner in relation to
the social-cultural contexts Race, class and gender discourses Lens 3 Practices of self-directed
learning and change
Learning:
- Within the schooling community - Outside the schooling community
Table 3.2: Multi-layered framework of analysis and interpretation
3.5.1 Lens 1: Restorying of field texts, the self through story (Chapter Four)
This section is a response to the first sub-question: Who are these teacher-learners engaging in self-directed professional learning and change? In this section of analysis, in collaboration with the teachers, I restory the field texts from the different data sources: the interview transcripts, newspaper articles, photographs, letters and certificates. This section includes contextual information (the teachers’ socio-cultural contexts), characters (the people in the teachers’ lives) and specific events (critical events which are identified by the teachers).
I find that the thematic restorying approach as a way to represent the narratives is an innovative approach. In restorying I attempt to “foreground the voice of the participant”
(Clandinin, Pushor & Murray, 2007; Mulholland & Wallace, 2003) by adhering as closely as possible to the field texts. Restorying helps to restory (retell) the narratives using themes (Wieber, 2010). In presenting the stories I searched for critical moments that would highlight the intention of the study, that is, the self-directed professional learning and change of teachers.
As proposed by Ollerenshaw and Creswell (2000), the method of restorying allowed me to analyse the critical moments as narrated by the participants for key elements that focus on the development of their teacher identities and the meanings that they give to their practice as teachers. The artefacts that the research participants selected allowed them to step back into particular memories which shape them as teacher-learners. Not all the stories relayed
Chapter 3 Research methodology
just remembered. Restorying allowed me to “weave together the delicate threads of memory”
by forming links between those critical moments. Throughout this process of restorying I collaborated with the participants so that they could validate the story and approve of the themes that I had selected. By doing this the participants and I negotiated and re-negotiated the constructed narrative. This kind of collaboration is an important step in the restorying as it serves to “lessen the potential gap between the narrative told and the narrative reported”
(Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p.19). Teachers also suggested alternate themes and proposed changes to some of the themes.
As researcher, I am conscious of the issue of voice and representation. I tried as much as possible to represent the stories told to me by the research participants using their words and ideas. I made decisions regarding the relevance of information to this study. In consultation with the research participants, I constructed the final version of the narrative. I then had to move beyond the first interpretation to the second layer of analysis, which focuses on the teacher-learner in relation to the socio-cultural contexts.
3.5.2 Lens 2: The teacher-learner in relation to the social-cultural contexts (Chapter Five)
This section is in response to the second sub-question: What meanings of self, shape teachers’ learning? In this section, I explore the teacher-learner in relation to the socio- cultural context through the theoretical lens of social identity theory and socio-cultural theory. I examine how issues of race, class and gender shape particular constructions of the teacher-learner and how teacher-learners negotiate these discourses as they make new meanings for themselves and engage with new ways of knowing, being and doing as a teacher-learner.
Social-learning theorists agree that learning is a social and individualised activity and that knowledge is socially constructed, and “this implies that the social, historical and cultural contexts, together with the individual’s setting in all these, determine the content, style and methods of learning” (Jarvis et al., 2003, p. 43). Looking through the lens of social identity theory and socio-cultural theory I explore how teachers who attended school during the apartheid era construct themselves as particular teacher-learners in post-apartheid South Africa. I analyse and interpret how teachers as agents of change or “vehicles of power”, (Foucault, 1980, p. 98) disrupt, resist, or defy imposed discourses of race, class and gender
Chapter 3 Research methodology
and the residues of apartheid through their self-directed learning, as noted by Francis et al.
(2003).
Through this lens, I examine the lives of these teachers and how they negotiate meanings of race, class and gender and the dominant discourses of schooling as they make new meanings for themselves as teacher-learners.
3.5.3 Lens 3: Practices of self-directed learning and change (Chapter 6)
This section of analysis is in response to the third sub-question: How do the meanings of teacher-learner inform teachers’ learning practices? I use Evans’s (2002) concepts of professionality and professionalism, combined with Bell and Gilbert’s model on professional learning (1996), as a lens for examining the practices of self-directed learning and change of teachers in post-apartheid South Africa. Given that professional development and continuous professional development in South African public schools are externally driven, I focus on how teachers as “initiators of change” take responsibility for their own learning and identify spaces within which their learning takes place (Day et al., 2002).
Through the lens of socio-cultural theory of learning I explore the dynamic connection between who teachers are and how they learn as reflective practitioners, as recognised by Jarvis and Parker (2005). As teachers reflect on their learning, what meanings do they give to their practice as teacher-learners (Jarvis, 2005)? In this section of analysis I show how teachers engage with learning for change within the socio-cultural contexts of their schools. I examine the formal and informal contexts in which learning for change takes place.
I analyse how teachers engage in various practices of learning within the schooling community as they learn with others, through others and through the self. I also analyse learning that takes place outside the schooling community and how these spaces contribute to teachers’ learning for change.
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