Narrative inquiry in a multicultural landscape, multicultural teaching and learning

grantor: University of TorontoIn this school-based narrative inquiry, which took place over three years, I focused on a multicultural school, a teacher in the school, and the teacher's understanding of her multicultural class. The purpose was to develop a narrative understanding of multicultural education by examining the teacher's experiences in the context of the school and community. This builds on Connelly and Clandinin's work on teacher knowledge as it develops in professional contexts (in press), and focuses on multiculturalism. I began the inquiry with immigrant teachers who were certified outside Canada and who were negotiating entry into the Ontario education system. I explored their experiences in the context of a university program that focused on the development of their skills. I continued the inquiry with an immigrant teacher working in an urban school for fifteen years. I examined this classroom from three perspectives: 'Place', the community landscape and school context; 'temporality', the history of the school and current programs; and 'interaction', my relationship with the school and the teacher, and the teacher's relationship with the school and students. Through long-term participant observation in the school and classroom, intensive on-going dialogue with my participant, and writing field texts and research texts I found that the literature and language of multiculturalism create ways of thinking about classrooms such as mine, which, I discovered, miss the complexity. In writing the inquiry I developed various aesthetic devices in an attempt to make apparent my location as researcher, the impact of my experiences on the inquiry, and how my relationship with the school and teacher shaped my experiences in the school, inspired how I wrote about the inquiry, and impacted my views of multiculturalism. I came to see a narrative approach as offering a new perspective on multiculturalism; one I term narrative multiculturalism. Narrative multiculturalism begins with experience as it is shaped by the contexts in which people live and work, and by broader societal and global forces. This approach views multiculturalism as a fluid process, continually evolving, changing, transforming. Narrative multiculturalism looks at the potential of multiculturalism to enrich disciplines and lives in increasingly globalizing societies.Ph.D