A marginal story as a place of possibility: negotiating self on the professional knowledge landscape

Drawing on a two-year study focusing on teacher identity and marginalizatio n within diverse school landscapes, we explore the educative and miseducati ve qualities of response as told through one teacher's story. By reconstruc ting and making meaning of this story through the conceptual framework of t he "professional knowledge landscape" [Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1995). Teachers' professional knowledge landscapes. New York: Teachers Col lege Press], we consider how this teacher's identity-which we understand na rratively as "story to live by"-shapes, and is shaped, within the in- and o ut-of-classroom places on her school landscape. Through a final retelling o f this narrative, we pay close attention to the response which emerged from each of these fundamentally different places and we er;amine this teacher' s negotiation of her story to live by in relation to a school story of incl usion. This focus enables us to name borders of power, judgment and silence , and "bordercrossings" [Anzaldua, G. (Ed.). (1990). Making face, making so ul = Haciendo caras: Creative and critical perspectives by feminists of col or. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books], which are shaped within "public homepl aces" [Belenky, M., Bond, L., & Weinstock, J. (1997). A tradition that hits ilo name: Nurturing thf development of people, families, ann communities, New York: BasicBooks]. We believe that this story is a place of possibility -possibility for understanding the central role that presence to our narrat ive histories plays in enabling us to live and to sustain stories that run counter to those being scripted for us on school landscapes. (C) 1999 Elsev ier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.