Curriculum, from the learnerâs standpoint, ordinarily represents little more than an arrangement of subjects, a structure of socially prescribed knowledge, or a complex system of meanings which may or may not fall within his grasp. Rarely does it signify possibility for him as an existing person, mainly concerned with making sense of his own life-world. Rarely does it promise occasions for ordering the materials of that world, for imposing âconfigurationsâ by means of experiences and perspectives made available for personally conducted cognitive action. Sartre says that âknowing is a moment of praxis,â opening into âwhat was not yet been.â Preoccupied with priorities, purposes, programs of âintended learningâ and intended (or unintended) manipulation, we pay too little attention to the individual in quest of his own future, bent on surpassing what is merely âgiven,â on breaking through the everyday. We are still too prone to dichotomize: to think of âdisciplinesâ or âpublic traditionsâ or âaccumulated wisdomâ or âcommon cultureâ (individualization despite) as objectively existent, external to the knowerâthere to be discovered, mastered, learned. (Greene, 1971, p. 253)
This quote from Maxine Greene, first appearing in print nearly half a century ago, still provides illuminating insight about how we, as educators, think about and experience our practice. While Greene is focusing on the student as learner here, we interpret this quote to include educators as well. And although in this quote she considers curriculum as classroom experience, we consider it in a more expanded way as narrative encounters, both inside and outside school. We also consider practice as a form of curriculum.
Greeneâs work stands out and gives us hope within a rich scholarship about teaching imagination and possibilities. Among these scholars are Bateson (1989), Palmer (1998) and Vinz (1996) on composing a teaching life; Behar-Horenstein and Morgan (1995) on teaching possibilities; Bradbeer (1998) on mythopoesis; Clandinin and Connelly (1992, 1995) on curriculum and professional knowledge landscapes; Greene on teacher choice, imagination, and personal reality (1991); and Palmer on teaching as a spiritual act (1993), However, a gap exists between this rich scholarship and the daily reality and circumstances of practitioners. Part of the difficulty in acknowledging the complexity of practice may stem from the lack of an inquiry language to access the relationship between self and practice, with the outcomes of a form of inquiry or self-study being an artifact of the method of inquiry.
Approaches that practitioners have used to examine their practice have ranged from action research starting in the 1940s (Lewin, 1948) to participatory action research (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988), to various forms of reflection (Schon, 1983) and critical reflection (Mezirow, 1990). More recently, scholars have begun using auto-ethnographies and collaborative-ethnographies (Chang, 2008). The goal for these approaches has often been the improvement of individual and collective practice. The actual self-study aspects of these inquiries have been more in the background in the action research studies and in the foreground of the auto-ethnographies, which are often focused on self-awareness as well as improvement of practice.
As a form of inquiry, self-study that promotes practitioner praxis and change in relation to practice has faced many challenges. We are also challenged by our working definitions of practice, which frame our study of self in relation to practice. For example, some teachers think of curriculum as their subject matter, others their students, and others the co-construction of student-teacher praxis. In a classic text about curriculum, Clandinin and Connelly (1988) wrote about the idea of curriculum, that our perceptions of it, grounded deeply in our lived experiences, frame how we work with our students in the classroom. These notions of curriculum include what counts as knowledge, who constructs knowledge and the purposes of education more broadly. We are also challenged by instrumental views of education that tend to deskill teachers and the notion of practice. Instead of promoting practitioner scholars who examine the scholarship of self and practice, instrumental pressures script practice by way of accountability mechanisms (Farenga, Ness, & Sawyer, 2015; Gershon, 2012). When we consider our practice, we rarely think of the creative, generative nature of our professional relationships with students and peers. Perhaps at the core of our practice lie relationships, creativity, visions for change, and, again to refer to the words of Maxine Greene, praxis.
A language of self-study to understand this complex process has been elusive. One of the leading challenges in the history of self-study has been to find a form of inquiry that is as rich as the worlds of practice being studied. It is partly this mismatch between the complexity of curriculum and practice and our frequently more limited ways to examine that practice that motivate educators to examine their practice through the experience of duoethnography. As a self-study methodology, duoethnography differs in key ways from some of its self-study predecessors. Perhaps the central distinction is that duoethnographers examine their practice from within itâbut through the eyes of one distant to itâto provide a new and destabilizing lens. It is done with at least two practitioners working together in tandem in a dialogic format which emphasizes differences in perception between these inquirers. In it, inquirers examine not just the present situation, but also their past personal history leading to the present, as well as the critical genealogies of beliefs and discourses within their family and early situation that have âscriptedâ their actions. As a deeply emic form of inquiry, duoethnography is embodied and relational, thus promoting praxis. Embodying inquiry, duoethnographers examine themselves in relation to their curricular topic in ways as complex as the curriculum itself (Norris, Sawyer, & Lund, 2012; Sawyer & Norris, 2013).
In this book we present duoethnographies of practice, self-studies that are both a form of practice and a way to deconstruct and reconceptualize that practice.
A Brief History of Duoethnography
Duoethnography was born in curriculum theory. Its âfirst generationâ practitioners were all curriculum theorists who would meet in the early years of the twenty-first century at leading curriculum theory conferences in Canada and the United States. These scholars started working with duoethnography to examine self as and in relation to curriculum (Sawyer & Norris, 2015). One of the central questions that formed a subtext to our work was the relationship between the individual/collective self and forms of institutional practice (e.g. masters and doctoral programs in education, counseling, nursing, drama, and communications). Working ourselves as complex practitioners, we sought to examine how forms of inquiry themselves could deepen, problematize, reinforce, and expand our perception of and engagement with our practice.
In keeping with the desire to avoid being overly prescriptive and encouraging each set of duoethnographers to develop their own styles (Sawyer & Norris, 2013, p. 18), in this volume we provide a range of studies that adhere to, ignore and/or extend duoethnographyâs initial tenets. Some are polyvocal conversation of present concerns more than a looking back for traces of beliefs and practices, adhering partially to currere (Pinar, 1975); others are more abstract with concrete stories that tell more than show. One uses a âteacher-in-roleâ technique, (Wagner, 1984) with conversations with a long deceased philosopher; another uses a screenplay format, and a strike through is used in yet another to demonstrate a series of decisions. Collectively, they provide an emerging chapter in duoethnography, demonstrating how each team of researchers make it their own.
The duoethnographies also provide a range of topics across disciplines (education, counseling, nursing, drama, and communications) and forms of practiceâthat is, duoethnographies on our curriculums of practice. What we mean by the curriculum of practice is the life text of our engagement with our practice. As text, we examine our lived experiences and histories for the discourses that have shaped our views, the discourses that act as ghost writers for our thoughts and interactions.
There is also an overlap in topics with this bookâs companion piece, Theorizing Curriculum Studies, Teacher Education and Research through Duoethnography (Norris & Sawyer, 2016). Some notes from that book could have been placed here and vice versa as most, in a broader sense, focus on our educational system. Some are more duoethnographic in nature and others focus on the pedagogy of duoethnography. All, however, promote dialogic relationships between teachers and students and writers and readers, making the two collections examples of democratic ways of being with others.
As a form of self-study, duoethnography provides a particular lens for us to explore our practice. Based on deep dialogues between two to three individuals with differing perspectives on a particular topic or construct, duoethnography has been used by a range of researchers to explore how we are situated in relation to practice and curriculum. These studies have explored the beliefs that underscore our perspectives and actions in relation to specific forms of practice.
An Example of a Duoethnography of Practice
Given that practice itself is a contingent and emergent process whose level of abstraction in discussion only rises with association with duoethnography, writing about duoethnographies of practice is challenging. Before discussing the theory undergirding the use of duoethnography in a class or academic program, a couple of concrete examples of how it has been used as a means of self-study might be helpful. One example may be found with Sean Wiebeâs use of duoethnography in a pre-service teacher preparation program. Wiebe (S. Wiebe, personal communication, July 9, 2015) integrated a duoethnography project into a course called Integrated Foundations. His goal was to have his students, who were preparing to become teachers, engage in duoethnographic dialogic self-studies in relation to an educational topic of personal meaning. As Wiebe (2015) stated, âthe Integrated Foundations course is to help preservice teachers sort of re-understand themselves in the kinds of cultural appropriation that they bring to who they are and what they do in teaching.â His goal was for students to begin to develop a new sense of reflection about other students, one built on knowing each other and then self through the concept of difference. He gave his pre-service students a duoethnography project in which they were to examine self and other as âlife text,â as the site of research, not the topic. The goal was for the students to create a reconceptualization of their views not by constructing a new coherent narrative emphasizing the similarities between their two stories, but rather by writing a narrative that explores the difference in the two perspectives:
This is particularly deliberate, especially in PEI [Prince Edward Island], because there is a sense of insider/outsiderness [âŠ] where the common stories is, âWe are a friendly place, we all get along, we all sort of know one anotherâ ⊠and that sense of how the âweâ is constructed is very interesting, and they have embraced an idea of whiteness, where whiteness becomes the story rather than the difference of what has formed who they are.
For the last part of their assignment, the students needed to be creative in the representation of their insights and present new ways of knowing from their writing and conversations in an aesthetic way. To scaffold this part of the assignment, Wiebe gave his students philosophical writings on theoria, praxis, and poesis. In this process, he encouraged them to make personal connections, to explore âhow this experience changes that knowing/doing), how they might understand what it means to be a teacherâthe act of doing teachingâwhere knowing, doing, and making come together.â It is clear that he intended that this assignment not be another one asking his students to reflect on some issue in teaching, one that had the potential to become counterproductive and lead to a hardening and reification of beliefs and biases in a collectively reinforced classroom setting.
Wiebeâs course is one example of duoet...