Tensions and dilemmas: a narrative inquiry account of a teacher-researcher

ABSTRACT

This article reports on a teacher-researcher's efforts to understand tensions and dilemmas encountered during a doctoral narrative inquiry research project with eight children in an urban, multidenominational primary school in the east of Ireland. Using a narrative inquiry framework and focusing on the teacher-researcher's experiences, this article makes visible how tensions and dilemmas shaped the teacher-researcher's ongoing identity formation, the inquiry and offers insight to others so they may learn from these experiences. This article conceptualises tension as the bumping of lives [Clandinin, D. Jean, and Michael F. Connelly. 2000. Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research. 1st ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers] and the irresolvable desire to have one's story told [Cavarero, Adriana. 2000. Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood. Florence: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315824574]. The narratives contained in this article were gathered across several arts-based workshops and include dialogue vignettes between children and the teacher-researcher, segments from the teacher-researcher’s fieldnotes and personal research journal. The article has implications for teachers who transition into doctoral studies and become teacher-researchers. Findings support the idea that problematic encounters faced while engaging in school-based research can be considered sites where new possibilities of understanding and knowing may emerge.

KEYWORDS:

• Narrative inquiry
• teacher-researcher identity
• narrative tension
• the narratable self

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Meegan

John Meegan is a lecturer in Primary Education in the School of Education, Hibernia College. John’s research interests include narrative inquiry research, design-based research, social-emotional learning, twenty-first-century skills, virtual scenario-based learning, and digital technologies for teaching, learning and assessment.