ABSTRACT
In the introductory chapter to his book Researching the Art of Teaching, Peter Woods tells of his experiences in the 1940s as a working-class boy at a middle-class grammar school. He notes that ‘at the time it was difficult to understand the personal hostility of some of the teachers, especially when we thought we were doing our best’ (Woods, 1996, p. 2). Ann Oakley suggests that, frequently, ‘academic research projects bear an intimate relationship to the researcher’s life… personal dramas provoke ideas that generate books and research projects’ (Oakley, 1979, p. 4). Although it may be fanciful to make the link, it seems that, throughout his career as an academic and educational researcher, Woods has been seeking to make sense of the attitudes and behaviour of teachers, even after he had himself become one. The outcome of his quest for understanding has been a substantial and significant contribution to the growing body of qualitative research that focuses on teachers and teaching. One strand of this work has been that which takes a biographical and, in particular, a life history approach. Writing in 1985, Woods suggested that ‘life histories are due for revival’ (Woods, 1985 p. 13). The number of publications describing life history work that have appeared since then suggests that there has been such a revival and, I would argue, Woods has played a significant role in advancing it.
