Autobiographical reasoning is closely related to the development of normative ideas about life as measured by the cultural life script. The acquisition of a life script is an important prerequisite for autobiographical reasoning because children learn through the life script which events are expected to go into their life story, and when to expect…

Scholars who study teaching and learning have provided the academy with a range of progressive pedagogies that move beyond traditional ways of teaching. In the call for the use of diverse classroom practices in higher education, many have highlighted the benefits and challenges that come with collaborative teaching models. In this chapter, the…

This essay outlines how the book, "Paths to Discovery: Autobiographies from Chicanas with Careers in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering" (Cantu, 2008) came about. I then use "testimonio" theory to analyze the narratives in this book as the data of a qualitative study, and I describe the general themes that the analysis highlights. I scrutinize…

I believe that in-depth exploration of one's gendered sense of self can contribute to both the personal and professional lives of educators and facilitate pedagogical and curricular change within schools and classrooms as students are offered similar opportunities for reflexive thought and learning. In this study, I both illustrate and examine the…

This article argues for the differentiation according to timescales of aspects of writer identity. It presents a framework for investigating the discoursal construction of writer identity that develops the categories proposed by Ivanic in two ways. First, it distinguishes aspects of writer identity according to the timescales over which they…

As two faculty members in a Canadian post-secondary teacher education context, the authors inquired into their collaborative writing process initiated through an informal faculty mentoring relationship. Situating their writing in the discourses of personal practical knowledge, social constructionism, narrative inquiry, and autobiography grounds…

Robert V. Bullough, Jr.'s article demonstrated in an impressive way how autobiographical accounts, as well as single person narratives, are intertwined with much larger issues in society, international politics, and economical interests, as well as consequences for people in general and educators in particular. The way he proves capable of…

Colleges survive sometimes because they are able to merge with another institution (a for-profit company, another private college, a state university). The change at the College of Charleston was shaped in the 1970s, when the college did not "merge" with a state institution--it "became" a state institution, which grew.. and…

This paper examines data from three projects to explore the "hidden costs" of participating in lifelong learning. Whilst other potential risks (financial for instance) are anticipated, those around family and friendship ties are usually not. Adult re-engagement with education can result in unexpected negative consequences for learners'…

This autoethnographic account describes interconnections among the author's personal prayer life, teaching, and research. The contextual frame for the story includes episodes and observations from a twelve-year span, encompassing postacademic tenure and promotion to the present. The author's prayer is that others might resonate with parts of this…

This study explores the relationship between flow, transcendent music making experiences, transcendent religious experiences, and music education. As a teacher-researcher, I studied my graduate students' autobiographical accounts of their experiences making music. Across these narrative writings produced over the past four years, a pattern…

This review article examines Leonard Waks's innovative collection of essays entitled "Self-Portraiture: The Uses of Academic Autobiography: Review of Leaders in Philosophy of Education: Intellectual Self-Portraits." The book is based on invitations to leading philosophers of education to write about their own careers in the field and to offer an…

Arming themselves with "manifest destiny" rhetoric, which claimed divine Anglo-Saxon superiority as justification for the conquest of Indigenous and Mexican peoples and the land they occupied, white settlers forcefully pushed into California territory. The two-year-long Mexican-American War resulted in the acquisition of the present-day…

This research essay is intended to situate the curriculum in my multicultural education courses--of talking back through autobiographical inquiry--within real schools, a site where curriculum theorists rarely situate their work. The literature by curriculum theorists that precedes my study generally has focused on how pre-service teachers in…

This study asked how two white, in-service elementary school teachers within the context of their classrooms navigated the cultural gaps between themselves and students from whom they differed (e.g. racially, ethnically, socio-economically, and/or linguistically). Three sub-questions examined: 1) what life experiences shaped how the teachers…