Abstract
Qualitative research (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994) provides a variety of methods and approaches for the rich description of classroom events and educational practices, and their meanings for teachers and students. I have chosen to use a quasi-ethnographic methodology employing impressionistic tales of the field (van Maanen, 1988) to explore some of the constraints and successes my colleagues and I encountered while implementing a number of innovative teaching approaches in five middle school classrooms in an Australian city during 1996. I have also explored some of the issues of relationship, reflexivity (Steier, 1995) and mutual respect that arose in the course of the study. The three tales presented here explore issues relating to the nature of science and science education. As important as the specific educational foci of the research, however, is the potential of the chosen methodology—the writing of impressionistic tales—and of the tales themselves to act as occasions for pedagogically-focussed critical reflection. This paper constitutes an invitation to others who conduct research from a pedagogical stance (van Manen, 1990) to explore the possibilities offered by the use of impressionistic tales for researching lived experience.
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Geelan, D.R. Weaving narrative nets to capture school science classrooms. Research in Science Education 27, 553–563 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02461480
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02461480