ABSTRACT
Peter Woods’ work on the life histories of teachers has always given considerable attention to their socio-political context, including the effects of education policy. This serves as an important antidote to some of the other approaches that have sought to sponsor teachers’ stories in recent years. Indeed, these emerged at a particularly unpropitious time. They set up one of the paradoxes of postmodernism: that at precisely the time teachers are being ‘brought back in’, their work is being vigorously restructured. Teachers’ voices and stories are being pursued as bona fide reflective research data at a time of quite dramatic restructuring. In fact, at precisely the time that the teacher’s voice is being pursued and promoted, the teacher’s work is being technicized and narrowed. As the movement grows to celebrate teachers’ knowledge, it is becoming less and less promising as a focus for research and reflection. Teachers’ work intensifies, as more and more centralized edicts and demands impinge on their world, and so the space for reflection and research is progressively squeezed. It is a strange time to leave traditional theory and pursue personal and practical knowledge.
