ABSTRACT

In this paper, I explore forms of inquiry becoming influential within teacher education. In particular, I will focus on forms of inquiry variously called “stories,” “narratives,” “personal knowledge,” “practical knowledge,” or in one particular genre, “personal practical knowledge.” I find myself highly sympathetic to the urge to generate new ways of producing, collaborating, representing, and knowing. These approaches offer a serious opportunity to question many of the implicit racial, class, or gender biases which existing modes of inquiry mystify whilst reproducing (see Giroux, 1991). Storying and narratology are genres that move researchers beyond (or to the side) of the main paradigms of inquiry-with their numbers, variables, psychometrics, psychologisms, and decontextualized theories. The new genres have the potential for advancing educational research in representing the lived experience of schooling.