Attending to Place in Narrative Inquiry With Teachers

• In Event: Narrative Research: Ontological, Epistemological, and Axiological Wonders

Abstract

This paper focuses on the importance of place in narrative inquiry methodology. Over the past three decades, narrative inquiry has become a fixture of the scholarly educational literature, partly due to the work of Jean Clandinin and Michael Connelly. The organizing framework for Clandinin and Connelly’s work is the “three-dimensional narrative inquiry space.” This paper adds to that framework by theorizing the dimension of place. It argues that rather than merely being a setting for experience, place is a dynamic factor within experience. In presenting the methods from a narrative inquiry study that particularly attends to place in the lives and work of three teachers, it challenges future narrative inquiry methodology to attend closely to the importance of place.

Author

• Mark T Kissling, The Pennsylvania State University