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Abstract
In this article about her early career development and the experiences that shaped her life as a scholar and researcher, the author describes the work lives of university-based teacher educators and what it means to compose a research life in this field. This article draws on the author's 30 years as a university-based teacher educator. In it, she reflects on some of her early (and later) experiences, focusing in particular on those that most shaped her work as a scholar and writer who was also, and always, simultaneously a practitioner. The article features five lessons learned about the author's composing of a research life in teacher education: locating/positioning oneself; nurturing long-term partnerships; holding on to practitioner perspectives; collaborating across multiple fields, methods, paradigms, and cultures; and, working on what one believes in and cares about. The article concludes with some advice addressed directly to emerging scholars in the field of teacher education.
Notes
1Some of the ideas in this section draw on the Preface to Inquiry as Stance (CitationCochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) and Inquiry as Stance: Taking Stock, a keynote presentation we gave at the University of Pennsylvania's Education and Ethnography Forum (CitationCochran-Smith & Lytle, 2010).