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This chapter addresses a sensitive topic in the field of education: the relationship between and among narrative inquiry, critical analysis, and critical theory. It argues that narrative inquirers are critical – but not in the same way that critical theorists are critical, although they may draw on the same literature and terms. To make our point, we unpack three of our peer-reviewed articles and highlight our theoretical frames and research moves to demonstrate criticality in narrative inquiry. We specifically discuss (1) titles and topics, (2) research frameworks, (3) historical and contemporary data, (4) use of participants' voices (words and feelings), (5) themes, and (6) new knowledge. We mostly argue that narrative inquiry exists because of experience. From experience, everything else unfolds – including criticality – depending on where the researcher in relationship with research participants, takes the inquiry. This chapter explicitly addresses a lived issue known both inside the narrative inquiry community and outside of it.

This narrative inquiry centers on teachers' longitudinal experiences of policy-related reforms systematically introduced to T. P. Yaeger Middle School, a campus located in the fourth largest, second most diverse city in America. The embedded research study, with roots tracing back to 1997, uses five interpretive tools to capture six mandated changes in the form of a story serial. Special research attention is afforded pay-for-performance, the sixth reform in the series. The deeply lived consequence of receiving bonuses for his teaching performance prompted Daryl Wilson, Yaeger's long-term literacy department chair, to proclaim “data is [G]od.” Wilson's emergent, inventive metaphor aptly portrays the perplexing conditions under which his career ended, and how my long-term research project likewise concluded.

As the novel virus was declared a pandemic, Korean schools quickly transitioned to remote schooling based on its advanced IT system, government-operated digital learning platforms, and an abundance of pre-existing online teaching materials (Byun & Slavin, 2020). Unfortunately, this story of “successful” educational responses to the pandemic was of little relationship to physical education (PE) partly because of the sparsity of supportive resources for online teaching of the hands-on subject area but mainly because of the incompatibility between the nature of the online classroom and the essence of PE (Baek & Yoon, 2020; Oh, 2021). As its name implies, physical education is inseparable from physical movements, bodily dialogue, close physical contact, and active, direct interactions between engaged individuals. Accordingly, PE teachers, dwelling in either online or blended classrooms where bodies are absent, and touch is unthinkable, are experiencing diminished room to implement their pedagogical repertoires and, in turn, affecting their deconstruction and reconstruction of their teacher identities (Kamoga & Varea, 2022). In a nutshell, PE subject matter and PE teachers' identities are being challenged and experiencing unexpected metamorphoses amid this global crisis.

Teacher retention and continued teacher growth and development have long been critical global issues in education. The recent pandemic crisis and subsequent “great resignation” (Lodewick, 2022) have returned our attention to the need for positive and enriching educational landscapes that promote teacher collaborative reflection, knowledge, and growth in order to sustain teachers in the field. This chapter explores the ongoing teacher learning that has occurred within two knowledge communities (Craig, 1995b) in the United States. It begins with an overview of Craig's early work with teachers, during which her conceptualization of knowledge communities emerged. According to Craig, knowledge communities are safe, collaborative spaces that cohere around teachers' intra/inter-school dialogue and their storying/restorying (Clandinin & Connelly, 1996, 1998) of experiences. Additionally, knowledge communities (Craig, 1995b) begin with originating events, allow teachers' experiences (Dewey, 1938) to resonate with others in the group, feature reciprocity of members' mindful responses, and promote the development of shared ways of knowing. Equally important, knowledge communities evolve and change, fuel ongoing reflection in community, and bring moral horizons into view. Employing these knowledge community qualities as our lens, we examine the interactions of the Portfolio Group and the Faculty Academy. The Portfolio Group is a teacher/teacher educator/researcher group formed in 1998 during a US education reform era (Craig, Curtis et al., 2020). Its sister group, the Faculty Academy, is a cross-institutional, cross-discipline higher education group of teacher educators/researchers formed in 2002 (Craig, Turchi et al., 2020). Employing a parallel stories representation (Craig, 1999), exemplars (Mishler, 1990) from both groups show how teacher collaborative groups have the capacity to be safe spaces in which critical professional dialogue, reflective exchanges, and generous scholarship occur among members. Furthermore, they are nurturing spaces in which teachers can thrive and be their best-loved selves (Craig, 2013; Schwab, 1954/1978). These two groups exemplify the ways in which knowledge communities support teacher collaboration, promote ongoing teacher growth and development, and foster teacher sustainability.

The Instagram site, teacherwhispers, was created as part of a qualitative research project that chronicled the stories and lived experience of preservice and graduate teachers. Since 2020, the purpose of the study was to identify themes connected to the participants' experiences of current trends in education. The intent was to situate the research as a critical interruption into the bigger political discourses surrounding education. The study sought to question why pedagogical practices are increasingly being positioned and located for political and economic reasons and to frame the questions of how we emerge as teachers in specific moments in time.

The methodology employed in the project was ethnographic and narrative-based, representing stories of teachers and teaching. Ethnography as embodiment contributes to an evocative portrayal of the participants' experiences. Teacher stories can be used to progress understandings of schools and schooling and play an important role in reflecting upon and learning from experience.

The selection of posts from teacherwhispers have brought into sharp focus the broad range of difficulties and rewards that are inherent in teaching. The site has been a microcosm of current issues in education. As a problematic and uncomfortable site of public pedagogy, it has been a site for sharing the realities, specificities and challenges of situatedness. The places where teachers work within their respective communities are highly diverse and can be a source of pressure both professionally and personally. Consequently, in the analysis of teacherwhispers, generalisations have been avoided.

As a repository of data for research, a public online site has its challenges; research is meant to be generalisable but in teaching each setting is unique and generalisations can be problematic. Sites of public pedagogy for teachers tend to be kaleidoscopic representations: diverse locations, groups, interests and disciplines. They are a stark reminder to be sceptical of accepting the statement, “research tells us” without questioning the positioning and biases that are inherently at play.

Practical elements of the project have included navigating a public online space for the dissemination of data.

Created in the spirit of problematising the methodology of public pedagogy, the online space at the centre of this project eventuated into something of a definition of what can be problematic in defining teachers' spaces of connection. The site was a place where opinions were expressed in confidentiality and that problematised methodology by putting into question what that methodology may be in a public sphere. What came forth as a result of putting methodology at the centre, rather than a definite answer, was unpredictability.

The online space has been an original place to display unanalysed data. The willingness to tell stories through an intermediary was juxtaposed by the public readership's unwillingness to engage with the stories, which would have meant exposing their identity. The online space is one that is increasingly relevant in public sharing and communications relating to communities of practice. This research is a critical interruption to the bigger political discourses in education. It questions why pedagogical practices are increasingly politicised. The project has been significant in mapping the stories of emerging educators at a time of unprecedented pedagogical change.

Research has documented how white teachers often fall short of their anti-racist intentions. However, much of this research is done with preservice teachers or teachers across disciplines. The authors investigate stories in which white English teachers who teach substantial proportions of black students and who self-reported anti-racist goals nevertheless fell short of those goals. The purpose of the study is to understand the tensions between racial liberalism and racial literacy in their pedagogy.

The authors snowball sampled 12 veteran white high school English teachers (3–27 years’ experience) who taught in schools with substantial proportions of black students. The authors used a two-stage interview process to narrow the sample to 7 teachers who confirmed their anti-racist intentions and who wrote narratives of moments when they tried to be anti-racist, but the lesson failed in some way. The authors used a three-stage narrative analysis to analyze how racial liberalism and racial literacy were reflected in the narratives.

The veteran English teachers, despite their anti-racist intentions, told narratives that reflected racial liberalism, portraying racism as an individual and interpersonal phenomenon. Some narratives showed teachers who had taken steps toward racial literacy, but no narratives showed a fully developed sense of racial literacy, portraying the layers of institutional and structural racism in English education.

The sample suggests that veteran white English teachers are subject to similar limited racial literacies as novice teachers. While the authors found glimmers of racial literacy, they still note the work necessary to equip veteran English teachers with the racial literacies necessary for anti-racist instruction. The authors propose directions for teacher education, systemic support and professional development.

A key social networking site for teachers, TikTok offers a new and valuable lens on educator attrition. This study aims to explore social media’s role in the increased transparency around leaving the profession and the online narratives crafted around transitioning out of the classroom.

Drawing on the conceptual framework of emergent storytelling and a recursive thematic analysis of videos and comments posted to the #teacherquittok hashtag on TikTok, this study examines how teachers are using social media to share their experiences of exiting the classroom.

The authors find that teachers used TikTok to share personal accounts that form a meta-narrative that provides context to their decisions to leave, share stories of loss and gain through negotiating the transition out of the classroom and finally debate the implications for preservice teachers. The authors discuss key takeaways for rethinking teacher support, teacher education and the role of social media in teachers’ professional lives.

While many studies seek to understand teacher attrition, this work examines how teachers’ stories shared on social media may be shaping attrition into an increasingly networked and narrated act.

Twenty-first century education has been reconfigured to keep up with growing societal shifts in an effort to support a wide variety of learners. As changes occur, the workload for teachers continues to expand with little to no support and resources within classroom spaces to keep up with the current times. Post pandemic, the expectations and systems have shifted emphasizing the need for more programming around social emotional learning and systems to help mitigate the learning disruption. The insurmountable pressure placed on teachers has led to a robust and persistent departure of the profession causing the entire education system to rethink the policies, structures, and systems that influence teacher burnout.

This collaborative effort aims to reduce international teacher attrition. Findings from the data are meant to be shared with principals to reduce the number of international teachers leaving teaching. The study revolves around three important research questions: What challenges do international teachers encounter and how do they meet them? What individual strengths help international teachers develop resilience in the transition process? and What support mechanisms help international teachers develop resilience in the adaptation process? The chapter ends with recommendations and implications for school leaders as they create conditions that will help retain new teachers.