REPRESENTING TEACHERS

The article scrutinizes the currently strong movement in sponsoring te achers stories and narratives. At precisely the time the teachers voic es are being enthusiastically pursued and promoted, the teachers work is being technisized and narrowed. As the movement grows to celebrate the teachers knowledge, it is becoming less and less promising as a fo cus of research and reflection. The teachers work intensifies, as more and more central edicts and demands impinge on the teachers world lea ving the space for reflection and research progressively squeezed. Sto ries and narratives therefore, can form an unintended coalition with t hose forces which would divorce the teacher from knowledge of politica l and micro-political perspectives, from theory and from broader cogni tive maps of influence and power. Hence new modalities using teachers stories and narratives as a starting point need to embrace wider histo rical and political discourses. Copyright (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Lt d.