An important recent development in the study of teaching is the use of narrative analysis to study teachers' lives, their work and anecdotes exchanged in the staffroom.; This book critically examines current approaches to the study of teachers' narratives and argues that, for narrative research to be effective, we need to see narrative in a multi- disciplinary perspective. The book examines models of narrative analysis currently proposed in linguistics, sociology, psycology, anthropology and literature and applies insights from these disciplines to the study of teachers' narratives. The author proposes an alternative approach to studying narratives which is then applied to original data, demonstrating how narrative analysis can be used to study primary teachers' perceptions of their work. lt is suggested that narrative analysis could be used to study the perceptions or culture of any professional group. "Although stories of personal experience are often dismissed as anecdotal evidence, Martin Cortazzi shows readers how to gather and analyse substantial samples of anecdotes and demonstrates that it is worthwhile to do so as a research method." "There is increasing interest among a variety of disciplines in the field of narrative analysis and wide recognition of the centrality of narrative in culture and cognition. Cortazzi's work is innovative in two ways. First, it shows how narratives can be analysed from a variety of perspectives, drawing on several models within each of the disciplines of sociology, psychology, literary analysis and anthropology. Second, these models are illustrated through quotation and analysis of the narratives of a significant occupational group - teachers."--Jacket Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 6 Preface......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 9 Chapter 1 Introduction......Page 10 Chapter 2 Narrative and the Study of Teaching......Page 14 Chapter 3 Sociological and Sociolinguistic Models of Narrative......Page 34 Chapter 4 Psychological Models of Narrative......Page 69 Chapter 5 Literary Models of Narrative......Page 93 Chapter 6 Anthropological Models of Narrative......Page 109 Chapter 7 Primary Teachers’ Narratives: One Thousand Stories from the Classroom......Page 126 References......Page 150 Index......Page 165 I should like to thank Maurice Galton and Sara Delamont for encour aging my research into narrative, Robert Burgess for his support as series editor, and Diana Cortazzi for reading through draft chapters. Many thanks also to Roy Kirk and his staff at the library in the School of Education at the University of Leicester for helping me to get hold of many books and articles. Finally, warm thanks to the teachers whose narratives form the data analyzed in chapter 6: they gave up their time to be interviewed and I am grateful to them. viii
