Narrative Accompaniment: Taking Up Professional Development as an Ethical and Relational Practice

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 1:45 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Staying Power: Narrating Teacher Identity and Becoming

Abstract

This study reimagines teacher professional development as an ethical, relational practice of accompaniment. Partnering with experienced mentor teachers, the project accompanies the development of speaking and listening practices and the ways they are shaped through teacher learning and mentoring. Supported by narrative inquiry and storying, the study engages teachers as co-theorists in sustained, reflective dialogue. Accompaniment functions as a methodological stance—centering care, reciprocity, and shared inquiry. Preliminary insights suggest that teachers value professional development grounded in relational ethics and collaborative reflection. The study contributes to a growing movement that views teacher learning as co-constructed and ecosystemic, bridging preparation, mentorship, and ongoing development while challenging extractive research models in favor of humanizing, justice-oriented approaches.

Author

• Ginger Barnhart, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill