Sistema Africano de Protección de Derechos Humanos

Do not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness.

James Thurber

In some ways the group interview feels just like I am teaching a class. Do these teachers see this setting in this way? It‟s a smaller group, it‟s in an informal setting, and I don‟t have any particular learning objectives to accomplish but the sense of authority is still there. According to many researchers, authority is just one tension that can infuse the relationship the researcher has with the participants. Besides the issues of authority (Mishler, 1999; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), consideration must be given to group dynamics (Grossman et al., 2000), each participant‟s personal goals for participating in the study (Weiss, 1994) and confidence the participant has in the researcher (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995).

With these concerns in mind, I carefully watch and record my observations throughout the

interview. Everyone seems relaxed and congenial. I feel more nervous than the participants seem to be. Will this relaxed mood last or will tensions rise? While everyone is getting refreshments and settling in, we spend time chatting. These teachers know one another, having seen each other in hallways and classes so introductions are informal and comfortable. For a group of teachers who are similar in age, ethnicity, and cultural backgrounds, they are each unique and different. Alice is always smiling and optimistic. Sally is quiet and withdrawn from the group. Betty, Cheryl and Donna seem confident in what they know about teaching. As the group interview more formally begins, these teachers do not seem uncomfortable or unduly concerned about the information they share.

How do these teachers choose to tell their stories in this situation? Do the stories these beginning teachers tell inform their practice in any way or do they serve some other function? As discussed previously, this is the second phase of the analysis. Looking at the structural components of the story began to reveal hints as to why these teachers chose to tell the stories and opinions that were somewhat speculative in the structural analysis can be supported or refuted with contextual clues from surrounding dialogue. Looking at the statements and actions that surround the story, as well as considering the sources and contexts of the story, will yield a deeper understanding of why the teller is telling that story in that particular way (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Reissman, 2008).

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I began by looking at the story sources and where the teachers indicated that they told these stories. In formulating the study, I had guessed that most of the stories would come from classroom teachers or personal experience. I had also hypothesized that more of these stories would be shared with other people outside the university or classroom or other pre-service teachers. I sought to verify this by searching remarks made during the group and second personal interview.

Next I looked at where the stories were embedded in the group interview to find out how the group interactions in this particular instance may have shaped the stories being told. As this analysis progressed, certain patterns of discourse emerged. The first observation was that the stories often occurred in a sequence with one participant‟s story sparking another one from another participant. In many cases, the teachers related one story after another with little or no dialogue between the stories. This is consistent with Schank's observation that “People love to match stories” (1993, p. 44). I

designated these as story chains and examined each closely. Within the story chains, other patterns emerged. For example, I noticed that certain stories seemed to confirm or contradict the previous story or shift the focus of the conversation. Furthermore, the stories within each chain often used similar

structures. These patterns were fully examined.

There were three stories, however, that did not occur in any of the story chains. While they related to the conversation among the teachers, they did not evoke other stories that either confirmed or contradicted them. I called these isolated stories and examined the context of these to see what insights they could yield.

I next considered how the stories functioned. Were these stories that were given as warnings or told for some other purpose? As I examined the stories, I noticed that they served both explicit and implicit functions for the tellers and listeners. The most explicit function was that the story functioned as conversational conventions. As pointed out earlier, story matching occurs in normal conversations and these teachers used stories to communicate with one another and the interviewer. However, there were more implicit functions for these stories as well. Some of the stories served as warnings to others or allowed the storyteller to “vent.” Some stories shared what other teachers had told these teachers about teaching. Unlike the conversational function, the stories that fulfilled these more implicit functions may or may not appear within the same chain. In all, four functions became apparent; these stories directed the

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flow of the conversation; provided emotional relief from the frustrations of learning to teach; warned others that teaching was hard; and demonstrated the identities these teachers were choosing to portray. Most stories fulfilled more than one function.

Additionally, when deciding how these stories might function, I also looked at the partial stories indentified during the structural analysis to see if they fulfilled the same functions. While they were not considered fully formed narratives, they were useful in providing additional insight into why these teachers were telling these stories. With this overview in mind, therefore, I will explain each more fully.