ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the post-16 literature as a subject in school. Max van Manen has written extensively on the use of phenomenology in educational research. A former school teacher in the Netherlands and professor emeritus at the University of Alberta in recognition of his work in research methods, pedagogy and curriculum studies his work on phenomenology is driven by the desire to bridge the pragmatic North American approach to education and research with an interpretive European approach. An important assumption of phenomenology is that consciousness forms the boundary of one's experience. Although phenomenology emphasises immediate experience as it happens in our consciousness, hermeneutic phenomenology recognises that 'reflection on lived experience is always recollective'. The chapter explores the three processes (Interpretation, conceptualisation and actualisation) drawn from hermeneutic phenomenological principles useful in the author's research and their application yielded interesting findings about teacher and student literature classroom experiences.
