Exploring My Unfinished Self A Narrative Inquiry Into The Life Of An Educational Activist

Author : Nicole Marie Bourassa
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (122 download)

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Download or read book The Transformative Power of Life Story written by Nicole Marie Bourassa and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "AbstractThis qualitative self-study explores the relationship between the personal and professional dimensions of a teacher’s life that shape identity and praxis. The question driving the research is: How have my life experiences (personal and professional) contributed, or not, to my identity as a high school teacher over the past 40 years? The two sub-questions were: What kinds of life experiences emerge in my recollection process? How do others perceive me as a teacher? I have written a memoir revealing my experiences as a woman, daughter, student, teacher, wife, and mother over six decades, and the role that perceptions of me by others have played in my life. It speaks to the social, political, and educational history of the time, disclosing the scope of my lived history and providing context for my study. The addition of an arts-based component in the form of collage inquiry derived from critical incidents identified in the field texts, was used to enhance my memoir with a visual aesthetic and to uncover ambiguities that might otherwise not have been revealed in words. I chose to use a thematic narrative analysis, which meant preserving the data as a cohesive piece of text in context from which I drew out emergent themes, while bearing in mind that all narrative inquiry is concerned with the content of “what” is said, written or visually shown I interviewed a range of participants who knew me over time as a teacher to obtain their perceptions of me in this role. I used a thematic analysis (constant comparison inquiry) to find commonalities across these participant interviews to add to the portrait of me as a teacher. I have attempted to answer my research questions by ascertaining the underlying events and situations that have influenced the course of my life, and their contribution to the construction of my professional identity and practice in my career as a teacher. Through the process of my personal audio-recorded recollections as well as audio-recorded interviews with family members, former students, a former administrator and a colleague. These disparate lenses which focused on me as a teacher over time were complementary (Maxwell & Miller, 2008), providing both a deep and broad understanding, as well as creating a holistic and unique depiction of my professional identity. There were four themes that emerged as characteristic of my practice and professional identity, revealing the importance of relationships and how they can be cultivated through storytelling. This highlights the value of fostering relationships through a storied pedagogy as a vital component of educational praxis.The innovative blending of narrative of self in the form of a memoir and arts-based methods employed in this study expands qualitative praxis, while the findings fill a gap in the literature regarding the importance of nurturing relationships within a storied pedagogy for teaching and learning in the classroom, and the vital role that teachers play in the lives of their students in preparing them for the 21st century. Finally, this theoretical premise contributes to illuminating understanding of the complex and nuanced phenomenon of teacher identity on praxis in a manner that informs educational theory and practice"--