Year: 2006
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The life histories of this project were collected and (re)presented to answer the \nfollowing research questions: What are the life histories of three preschool teachers and \nhow do they inform our understanding of teacher knowledge in an early childhood \nsetting? And how does the researcher’s life history add to the discussion of teacher \nknowledge? The project was executed in three parts using the methodology of life \nhistory research (Goodson & Sikes, 2001; Hatch & Wisniewski, 1995b; Plummer, 2001; \nTierney, 1999). \nThe first part is a contextualization of “teacher knowledge” as situated in the \nfields of early childhood education [ECE], curriculum studies and the personal \nexperiences of the researcher (Connelly, Clandinin, & He, 1997; Ellis, 2004; Pinar, 2000; \nTobin, 1997). The second part is a narrative created from the life stories of the four \nteachers, employing a narrative analysis created from the data, gathered through \ninterviews and ethnographic observations, then crafted using tools such as interactive \nnarrators, fractured voices and fractured timelines (Polkinghorne, 1995a). The third is an \nanalysis of these teachers’ practice introduced and “known” through their histories—an \nattempt to both explicitly bring the researcher’s meaning-making apparatus to bear on the \nlives of these teachers, as well as trouble the act of making meaning. \nIn the end a particular/multiplicitous “way” of educating is examined. The desires \nof the teachers are found and categorized through the resistances that they describe in \ntheir stories and practices. These include resistance to that which the teachers perceive as \n“traditional” ECE, to their own assumptions, to the governing bodies of ECE, to the \nconfining descriptors of “appropriate” ECE, to self-regulation, to hegemonic perceptions \nof knowledge, and to the hegemony of gender performance and perceptions of \n“childhood.” There is an exploration of the creation of space by the teachers. \nImplications for curriculum studies, ECE, teacher education and future research \nare posited, including a reconceptualization of “appropriate” education for young \nchildren, a re-examination of self-regulation in teacher practices, and a melding of critical \nperspectives and pedagogies of hope for educators who can learn from these life histories \nand from those with whom they share intimate realms.
Author: Timothy A. Kinard
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2137473035