Final Version May 5 07

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Narrative inquiry has provided the research methodology for this study. It shares
the philosophy and epistemological assumptions of constructivism. Narrative inquiry is
the process of gathering information for the purpose of research through storytelling. The
case studies presented are the stories of four teachers told within the context of my own
story. Clandinin and Connelly (1994) write about the overlapping of stories of those
researched with the researcher:
The struggle for research voice is captured by the analogy of living on a
knife edge as one struggles to express ones' own voice in the midst of an
inquiry designed to capture the participants' experience and represent their
voices, all the while attempting to create a research text that will speak to
and reflect upon the audience's voice. (p. 29)
Narrative inquiry focuses on meaning-making. According to Connelly and
Clandinin (1990), “humans are storytelling organisms who, individually and socially,
lead storied lives. The study of narrative therefore is the study of the ways humans
experience the world. This general notion translates into the view that education is the
construction and reconstruction of personal and social stories; teachers and learners are
storytellers, characters in their own and other’s stories” (p. 2).
Creating these narratives has revealed a process that is metaphorically like
walking through a labyrinth. “Stepping out of the linear mind is often the most
challenging part of the walk. Even though the person has been assured that the path leads
to the center, someone who does not surrender easily to experience might stop walking
during the first part, trying visually to figure out where the path goes. Of course, there is
not a right or wrong way to walk the path. This can be a valuable lesson about control
and surrendering to process” (Artress, 1995, p. 77).