Chapter Three Attending to the Temporal Dimension of Narrative Inquiry into Teacher Educator Identities

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to explore and make visible narrative thinking as an interpretive act in moving from field texts to research texts.

Approach – The chapter shows a collaborative meaning-making process of three teacher educators/researchers as they inquire into their identities as teacher educators. The chapter is framed around a focus on temporality, one commonplace within the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space and also shows connections with the two other commonplaces of sociality and place.

Findings – The researchers deepen the understanding of identity as situated in a continuity of experience in relation with others. They highlight how stories beget a storied response. They demonstrate that the experiential dimensions of sociality, temporality, and spatiality are interconnected. They find, through thinking narratively, that the relational is critical – both historically and in the present. Relationships shape a sense of self. This relational aspect of their research introduces ethical considerations. It is in honoring the stories they carry and the stories that are given to or shared with them that the possibility exists for shaping a responsive and attentive life.

Research implications – Numerous authors have written about the relational aspects of narrative inquiry as a research methodology. This chapter shows ways in which the relational aspects of narrative inquiry shaped both our inquiry into and our understandings of our identities as teacher educators. These foundational aspects of the relational both in terms of narrative inquiry as a research methodology and in identity inquiry open up many future research possibilities which extend far beyond narrative inquiry into teacher educator identity.

Value – Researchers utilizing a narrative inquiry approach will find a helpful explanation and demonstration of the process of making meaning of field texts by situating them within the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space.

Citation

Shaun Murphy, M., Ross, V. and Huber, J. (2012), "Chapter Three Attending to the Temporal Dimension of Narrative Inquiry into Teacher Educator Identities", Chan, E., Keyes, D. and Ross, V. (Ed.) Narrative Inquirers in the Midst of Meaning-making: Interpretive Acts of Teacher Educators (Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 16), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 51-75. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3687(2012)0000016007