Relaciones familiares

The final methodology being reviewed here picks up on the idea that ultimately any and all ways of knowing and seeing the world are in fact narratives ⎯ different ways

to tell the story of what was seen, why it occurred and what it means. It can be argued that even positivistic methodologies are narratives in the way that non-fiction is. They too tell stories, and describe ways of seeing the world, just as fiction or

autobiographical texts relate different ways of seeing the world.

Denzin (1997) presents text, and particularly research text, as a distinct form of cultural representation. The researcher is active in reproducing ‘experiences that embody cultural meanings and understandings that operate in the “real” world’ (p.33). Therefore, texts are ways to ‘carry news’ between ‘real’ worlds. Gough’s (1998) motivation for exploring educational problems and issues through their

reinterpretation as stories and/or texts arises out of an ability to apply poststructural theorising. Through text, it is possible to apply a range of critical analysis and deconstruction, exploring ‘how a discourse works and what it includes and excludes’ (p.118).

What goes on in the daily life of a school is about the mundane, routine, the habits rather than the conflict or other monumental moments (Ball 1987). By documenting the everyday there is opportunity to explore what is the normal, unnoticed or that which is not commented on within everyday life that adds critical weight to the development of curriculum ⎯ formal and hidden (Carr and Kemmis 1986). Thus the use of narrative and storytelling as a means to understand the daily life or

micropolitics of schools is particularly powerful.

Curriculum research will not build up a systematic body of knowledge, partly because many of the underlying problems are ethical rather than technical, and partly because the nature of curriculum ⎯ its dependence upon the formation of meanings through contingent interaction ⎯ does not lead to ‘definitive concepts and firm conclusions (Barnes 1981, p.311).

While it is a form of documentation that cannot be validated externally, and the meanings are not automatically transferable to other schooling sites, a narrative provides a rich understanding of an event and the context in which it occurred.

Denzin (1997) writes on narrative, storytelling and text as ‘a stimulus for social criticism and social action ⎯ a joining of the personal, the biographical, with the political and the social’ (p200). Gough (1998) draws on Grumet’s (1981) perspective of autobiographies as a means to build a critical perspective on what we might take for granted to argue. Narratives can be used to ‘see how our personal histories and hopes shape whatever it is we are trying to achieve in education’ (p125). Therefore ‘(n)arrative is intended to be emancipatory’ (Gough 1998, p.121). In educational research, Gough (1998) argues that the generation of stories is important because it ‘moves educational inquiry beyond mere reflection and reflexivity towards actually making a difference in the world’ (p.119). He contends that ‘(e)ach storytelling practice privileges a particular set of narrative strategies and conventions’ (p.119). Narratives document perceived experiences. The narrator constructs some meaning and order about their experience. In doing so the narrator is able to focus on a coherent and realizable story (Gubrium & Holstein, 1998).

Schools particularly are locations where storytelling is endemic. Teachers talk with each other about classroom practice; they discuss strategies for dealing with students, they manage classroom practice through story and they tell parents and others in the school community what they want them to know about the life of the school. So narrative inquiry is concerned with ‘analysing and criticising the stories we tell and hear and read in the course of our work . . . as well as the myths that surround and are imbedded in our social interactions (p.121). Gough (1998) in drawing on the work of Connelly, suggests that much of what we claim to ‘know’ in education comes from telling each other stories of educational experience.

The research methodologies that informed this thesis have included action research, interpretive research, feminisms and narratives. In the following section I will review the relationship between schooling and microeconomic reform, and the impact of the New Right on educational discourse. New Right ideology is having a particularly

significant effect upon the notion of the health promoting school, and the style of research required to generate what is ‘known and seen’ about the HPS within the Australian context.

The importance of the discussion to this point about some of the variations of critical theory to this thesis was to set the scene for the final methodology used with the case study school. As indicated earlier in Chapter 1, I was challenged to consider method and methodology that respected and reflect the principles of the HPS. The power relations within the research process that I would use together with the constructed context and meaning not only needed acknowledgement but also care (Agar 1997; Waldern 2006). In drawing on my understandings of the critical theory presented I was drawn to a case methodology that would opportunity for increased

understanding of the participants and their contextual conditions as they evaluated the value and possibilities of life in a HPS (Angers & Machtmes 2005, Creswell 1998; Yin 2003) Any activity also needed to provide opportunity for the participants to reflect on and share with others what the school and its actors were engaging in with consideration for modified or changed future activity.