ABSTRACT
In Chapter 2, I explored the case for the conception of teachers as pedagogical toolmakers exerting agency over professional contexts mediated by a complex socio-cultural and technological ecology of factors. However, how do we capture and make sense of teachers’ motivations and intent as they exercise such agency over contexts and technological tools, and how do we represent authentic teacher voices in education research (Cortazzi and Jin, 2006)? Issues of equity and power have been at the core of methodological debates concerning representation in practitioner research throughout the 20th century and continue today. Action research, evolving from Kurt Lewin’s work in the 1930s and 1940s, has seen several resurgences (Freire, 1970; Stenhouse, 1975), motivated by the desire for teachers ‘to be seen as partners in a developmental process’ (Altrichter et al., 2008: 268). Narrative methodological debates have similarly centred on issues of power and representation in education research (Chase, 2005; Goodson, 2005). Throughout this chapter I argue that our understanding of the relationship between thought and language further complicates such issues of representation and power. I begin by examining some of key issues surrounding the analysis of language and utterance before going on to discuss how narrative became an important tool in my own research for understanding the complex web of intentions and actions of teachers as they engage in professional contexts, appropriating technological tools.
