Premium
Managing Marginality: teacher development through grounded life history
Author(s) -
Woods Peter
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
british educational research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1469-3518
pISSN - 0141-1926
DOI - 10.1080/0141192930190501
Subject(s) - pleasure , event (particle physics) , grounded theory , life history , philosophy of education , sociology , pedagogy , psychology , social science , qualitative research , higher education , political science , law , ecology , physics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , biology
In exploring an exceptional educational event in his school, a teacher had recourse to his life history. The event was the fullest expression in his teaching to date of his self, and to understand the event fully, it was necessary to see how that self had come into being, developed, resisted attack, been mortified, survived, and at times prospered. His philosophy of teaching was rooted in these childhood experiences, which he saw as starkly divided between the alienating world of formal schooling and a natural world of real learning. Critical incidents and degradation ceremonies marked those occasions when the two came into conflict. The sense of marginality that resulted has stayed with him throughout life, though it has had its moments of exquisite pleasure as well as intense pain. In managing his marginality, he has cultivated private places and a reference group of significant others who have supported and developed his preferred beliefs. But success in teaching is the main support. Finally, I discuss grounded life history as a research method, and as yet another potential resource for the teacher.