Narrative Reasoning and Teacher Development: A Longitudinal Study

ABSTRACT

To illustrate and explore the power of narrative reasoning in teacher development and as a mode of inquiry, three versions of a story of teacher development are presented. Drawn from a nine-year longitudinal case study, each version is analyzed by both authors, interpretations are compared and contrasted, and lessons are drawn for teachers and teacher-education researchers. Two approaches to narrative reasoning are taken, where individual teacher stories are interrogated as data and, as private theories, are compared and contrasted to public theory, in this instance represented by teacher life-cycle research, with the result that both types of theory are enriched and the research relationship strengthened.