Onwards and Upwards? Eleven Career Stories from a Teacher Training College : an Exploration in Narrative Knowledging

King, Graham (2023) Onwards and Upwards? Eleven Career Stories from a Teacher Training College : an Exploration in Narrative Knowledging. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This study is framed as an exploration in narrative knowledging and has a focus on the recent end-of-career experience of teachers. The study develops an innovative methodological approach that combines a more traditional social sciences perspective with an arts-based and documentary stance less common in the social sciences, and adopts Barkhuizen’s five core dimensions of narrative inquiry as a theoretical framework. Hockerill College was a teacher training college that opened in 1852 and was closed in 1978. Its motto was Onwards and Upwards. The eleven participants in this study, an opportunistic sample, were in the final cohorts of trainee teachers at the college prior to its closure and, at the time the research was undertaken, were either recently retired, approaching retirement, or considering future retirement. Using photo, music, document and graphic elicitation thirty-two audio-recorded online life history interviews were conducted through Microsoft Skype. Drawing on case study, life history and arts-based approaches the study develops a methodological process to preserve the authority and power of the participant voice by using only the participant voice in the narrative analysis, with transcript data distilled into individual verbatim narrative career stories. An interactive approach to the experience of the participant voice is suggested through a supporting playlist of the songs that are linked with the eleven verbatim narrative career stories in the study. A conventional representation of findings was not consistent with the innovative narrative knowledging framing and findings are embodied in the form, contents and sequencing of the verbatim narrative career stories. Further context to the verbatim narrative career stories is given through consideration of the background to teacher training colleges and their closure, an overview of ideas about sense of place and place stories, discussion on the concept of career and career change, and a reflection on teacher professional identity.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Education and Lifelong Learning
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	07 Nov 2023 13:04
Last Modified:	08 Nov 2023 10:44
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/93590
DOI:

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