gk_professionaldevelopment_groundedtheory

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GEERT KELCHTERMANS

in autobiographical story". This implies that hebiographical apgroach not so much focuses onthe facts, but rather on the meaning they haye_ orthe respondent. The interpretative element, aswell as the narrative structure of the data (i.e.,recalled experiences) constitute the core elementof the narrative discourse.

The approach is also constructivistic (see, e.g.,Berger & Luckmann, 1985; Bruner, 1986;Gergen & Gergen, 1987; Markus & Wurf, 1987).The teacher actively construes his or her careerexperiences into a story that is meaningful tohim or her. Also his or her conception aboutteaching and of him- or herself as a teacher are"construed" meanings.

Story always implies context(Siegert & Chap-man, 1987). In the narrative discourse events arealways presented in their context. By context I

mean the physical, institutional environment ofthe school as well as the social, cultural andintrapersonal "Lebenswelt". The contextualisticelement is important because I also take aninteractionistic stance (Blumer, 1969; Mead,1974; Nias, 1989a). Human behaviour alwaysresults from a meaningful interaction with theenvironment or context (social, cultural, material,institutional). This is closely connected to theconstructivist element: Meanings are construedthroughout the interaction with the environment.Especially the social (the other actors) and the

cultural environment (opinions, the schoolculture see Staessens, 1993) play an importantrole. This way a conceptualisation ofprofessional behaviour that is too cognitivistic,as well as an approach that is too subjectivistic(only looking at what happens "inside51 theteacher) is avoided.

The dynamic aspect finally (Gergen & Gergen,1987; Markus & Wurf, 1987) emphasises anothercore element in the biographical approach; thetemporal dimension and the developmental dy-

namic. Teachers' actual thinking and actingconstitutes one moment, a fragment in a con-tinuous process of assigning meaning to the perceived and experienced reality. Professionalenvironment thus also includes a temporal di-mension. The biographical perspective conceivesof context in a spacial and a temporal sense.

Conceived of this way the biographical per-spective allows a comprehensive in-depthapproach of teachers' professional development

Research Questions, Preliminary ConceptualFramework, and Procedure

This article reports on the main study of aresearch project, entitled "The professional bio-graphy of primary school teachers". The mainstudy was preceded by an extensive explorationof the literature (Anglo-Saxon, French, and Ger-man; see Kelchtermans, 1990a; Kelchtermans &Vandenberghe, 1990) and two pilot studies (DeJaegher & Indenkleef, 1990; Kelchtermans,1993d; Van Den Branden, 1991). In this projectthe main aim was to understand teachers' pro-fessional development by reconstructing andanalysing their career experiences. According tothe biographical perspective as characterisedabove, I was interested in the way teachersthemselves experience their careers. The focus

was explicitly on the personal perception and thesubjective meaning of these experiences by theteachers. I therefore use the notion "professionalbiography or career story" instead of the (formal)"career", to refer to the way the teacherretrospectively reconstructs his or her careerexperiences as a story. In this story the facts,situations, and experiences are presented in theirsubjective meaning for the teacher and organisedinto a personally meaningful "Gestalt" (see a.o.Berk, 1980, p. 94; Bahrdt, 1982, pp. 24-27).

The literature study and the two pilot studies

resulted in a preliminary conceptual frameworkand a research procedure.

According to the "grounded-theory" approach(Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Wester, 1987) theconceptual framework was conceived of as a setof "sensitizing concepts". The tentative defi-nitions of these concepts were specified andrefined during the study (especially during thecontinuing analysis of the data). The pilot studies(and the exploration of the research literature)gave evidence that teachers during their career

develop a professional self, a personal conceptionof oneself as a teacher and a subjective educationaltheory, a personal system of knowledge andbeliefs about their job. The main study aimed atreconstructing the professional self and subjec-tive educational theory from the career stories.Self and subjective educational theory were con-ceived of as valid indicators of the professionaldevelopment. The central research question thenwas: Can one understand teachers9 professionaldevelopment by reconstructing the career storid


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Getting the Story: U:

Indicators for the professional development areprofessional self and subjective educational theory.Professional self and subjective theory thus re-sulted form the analysis of the career stories. They

are thus second-order constructs.For the reconstruction of the career stories a

research procedure (Kelchtermans, 1990b, 1993cand 1993a, pp. 115-163) was developed in whichseveral research techniques were combined: acareer questionnaire (to list the formal career),

biographical interviews, logs, classroom, andschool observations.2 A cycle of three semi-structured biographical interviews constituted themain research technique. The interviews aimed atstimulating teachers to reflect back on their careerexperiences and to tell their career stories. Theresearch procedure was cumulative: It containeddifferent steps in the data collection, that built oneach other. Every interview or observation was

preceded by and based on an interpretive analysisof the data already collected. The data collectedwith one technique were used to analyse other data(tri-angulation).

Between May 1990 and July 1991 10 experi-enced Flemish Primary School Teachers (between15 and 25 years of classroom experience) fromfour different Flemish schools were studied. Atleast two teachers from the same school wereselected, to have an extra source for data tri-angulation. Four female and six male respondents

participated in the main study.The data were analysed in two steps. The

vertical analysis can be described as a chain of

interpretive transformations of the data during thecollection process (the analyses between the stepsin the data collection), and resulted in a synthesistext, that was fed back to the respondent forcommunicative validation during the finalinterview. The respondent's comments wereintegrated in a final version of the synthesis text,that was called the "Professional BiographicalProfile". All profiles had a common text structureand thus constituted the basis for the secondanalytical step, the horizontal analysis. The verticalanalysis concentrated on the internal coherenceand consistency of the individual teacher's story!,in the horizontal analysis the ProfessionalBiographical profiles of all the respondents werecompared systematically, looking forcommonalities, remarkable differences, recurring

patterns, and so on.

derslanding the Lives

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Teachers' Professional Biographies

The Formal Career

The life time teachers spend on teaching can beorganised into a so-called "formal career", achronological chain of positions, roles and so on, ateacher is involved in during his or her teachingyears. This "actual" career3 functioned as a"skeleton", a starting point for the data collectionThe career story, as a result of the collection

procedure, was to give "flesh and blood" to thatskeleton.

Below I will sketch briefly the formal career ofLeo, one of the respondents, whose story will beused as an illustrative case study.

LEO: born in 1951 1963-1970: Secondary School and Teacher Training

College in City September 1970-January 1972: Interim-jobs in R.

(Grade 2) and A. (Grade 2) January 1972-January 1973: Military service

(compulsory) January 1973-June 1973: Three interim-jobs, in H.

(Grade 2), in A. and in ST (Grades 4 and 5) September 1973-1974: One year in He. (Grade 1) June 1974: Marriage September 1974-June 1977: Remedial teacher at the

LarkNovember 1976: Daughter K. is born 1976-1978:Intensive inservice-training (Higher EducationalInstitute)

September 1977-June 1985: Grade 3 at the Lark

(Boys School)training as librarian 1978-1979lifelong assignment: September 19791979-1989: Freelance journalist (book reviews)for newspaperApril 1983: Daughter E. is born

September 1985 - now: Grade 1 at the lark (GirlsSchool; mixed since 1986)

October 1989-June 1990 inservice trainer.

Although presented only synoptically, this formalcareer already reveals a number of importantissues. Leo is a teacher with very diverse profes-sional expertises and experiences. He has taught inalmost all Primary School grades, he worked as aremedial teacher and as an inservice trainer. Healso is a librarian and worked as a freelance

journalist. When confronted with new job demandsor tasks, he looks for further professional-isationthrough inservice training (Higher EducationalInstitute, courses on learning difficulties and onworking with groups). He also had to wait quitelong before getting a lifelong assignment (see

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446 GEERT KELCHTERMANS

The Professional Biography: A Story AroundCritical Incidents, Phases, and Persons

Earlier the professional biography or careerstory was defined as the retrospective and nar-rative reconstruction of the career by the teacher,in which his or her professional experiences are

reconstructed in a meaningful "Gestalt". In thisstory certain events, phrases, or persons functionas "turning points". They create a problem orquestion the normal, routine behaviour. Theteacher feels forced to react by reassessing certainideas or opinions, by changing elements of his professional behaviour, and so on. Sikes et al.labelled these experiences or periods as "criticalincidents and critical phases" (Measor, 1985;Sikes et al., 1985). The pilot studies learned thatthese notions were very useful as heuristic toolsin exploring the career stories. Based on the dataof those studies however the notion of "criticalperson" was added to the conceptual framework(Kelchtermans, 1993d; Kelchtermans & Vanden-berghe, forthcoming). Critical persons are refer-red to by the teachers as having had an importantimpact on their career.

A fragment of Leo's professional biographycan illustrate this:

Leo has been a remedial teacher for 3 years. Because the job of remedial teacher in Primary Schools wasrelatively new at that time and because he soon realised

that his knowledge about learning problems andremedial teaching was insufficient, he decided to take a3-year inservice course on learning difficulties. Throughthis course and through the informal meetings withcolleagues he got acquainted with remedial teachersfrom other schools in an atmosphere of dynamism andcommitment Leo is enthusiastic when recalling thoseyears of trying, studying, and exchanging withcolleagues ... It was **a wonderful period" and a "heroic

period" too. Those times gave him great personalsatisfaction and stimulated him in his job. At the sametime it gave him a new perspective as a teacher. " 1 wasdetermined to be a remedial teacher for the rest of mylife" and I was prepared to "engage myself very far in

this specialisation7

'. The authenticity of his commitmentbecomes evident from the fact that the inservice course,that took place every Wednesday afternoon andSaturday morning during 3 years, did cost him a wholelot of his leisure time. Not to mention his personal studytime. But he was really "fascinated by the domain oflearning problems and ... 1 was prepared to engagemyself very far in it."

This euphorical period however was abruptly ter-minated in 1977 when the schoolboard (with the parish

priest as chair) decided to put Leo in Grade 3 and toappoint as remedial teacher a colleague, who baddifficulties (for reasons of personal health) in

managing a full class. This event ruined Leo's per-spective as a remedial teacher. Fortunately the pupils inGrade 3 were a motivated and pleasant group to workwith. But the classroom was an old, ugly, and unpleasantroom and Leo absolutely disliked it (* couldn't work insuch a place"). Because the school board had suggestedthat he would stay in that grade and that classroom, Leowanted to renovate it With some "artistic friends" he

worked a couple of weeks to repaint the entire class,gave it a blue ceiling with while clouds and rainbowsetc. But after 2 years Leo once again was moved, toGrade 3 in the Boys School. He didn't only lose hisfavourite classroom, but came into a room that was evenworse than the former one. The colleague whose classwas taken over by Leo had had a nervous breakdown,after having been incapable to run the grade for somemonths. **\ arrived in a real piggery ... that made thingsstill worse. It was unbelievable". Because Leo at thattime still had not received his lifelong assignment (theschool board twice had selected a colleague when therewas an occasion for such an appointment), Leo couldnot do anything against this decision.

The years in Grade 3 (from 1977 till 1985) aredescribed by Leo as a "career breakdown": He taughtwithout any commitment or enthusiasm and tried tocope with the disillusion by doing things outside school(e.g., training for librarian and freelance journalist for anewspaper).

In this example the concepts of critical incident, person, and phase are clearly illustrated. Theperiod as remedial teacher and the one in Grade 3are examples of critical phases for Leo. They hadan important impact (positive and negative) on

his professional commitment and job satisfaction.At the same time, the chair of the schoolboard isan illustration of a negative critical person: Hisdecisions directly influenced Leo's professionalbehaviour. First he ruined his perspective as aremedial teacher and then he took away therenovated classroom. The renovation of theclassroom was an element of Leo's copingprocess with the disappointment about the forcedchanges in his job. In Leo's story, the classroombecomes the symbol for his efforts to cope with

the situation and to give a new perspective tohis job. The fact that he did not feel well in thesituation (the lost job perspective) is symbolicallyrepresented and at a symbolical level (partly)transcended by turning the unpleasant room into astimulating, good-looking environment Thisinterpretation makes it possible for thelistener/reader to realise the personal tragedy ofLeo's last change in classroom. Metaphoricallyone could say: Even the hardly recovered feelingof "being at home" in his job as


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Getting the Story: Understanding the Lives 447

a teacher is destroyed by literally putting him

out of the house" (the preferred and creativelyarranged room). Only from this symbolic-

biographical background can the personalmeaning and the impact or these experiences beunderstood properly.

The fragment also shows how the narrativeapproach is able to cover the complex interplay f personal experiences and expectations of a".etcher, his professional behaviour and the or-ganisational context. It makes clear howJaj&Lcertain decisions in that organisational contextcan be for the developing professional perspec-tives of teachers.

It is important to remark that the identificationof critical incidents, persons, and phases as suchis done retrospectively. Only afterwards does theteacher clearly realise the scope of the

experience and attributes a significant meaningto it. In this study, the notions were used in thefirst place as heuristic concepts, namely as toolsin the retrospective search for a meaningfulcoherence in the career experiences.

The notions of critical incident, person, andphase did not only prove useful as heuristic toolsin analysing the career stories- They also can beconsidered as theoretical concepts^ referring toevents, persons, or periods that are perceived bythe teacher as having a specific and clear impacton the development of his professional behav-iour, his professional self, and subjective educa-tional theory (see below). This definition is aformal one: The critical character depends on thesubjective meaning that is attributed by theteacher. The specific content of a critical incident, phase, or person therefore can strongly differamong teachers and has to be understood fromthe entire career story.

The Professional Self and the Subjective

Educational Theory

The career stories or professional biographieswere the basis for the reconstruction of theteachers9 professional self and their subjectiveeducational theory. Both the self and the subjec-tive educational theory constitute the interpretiveframework teachers use to give meaning to their professional situation and their behaviour. Inother words, teachers' "professionaldevelopment" understood as a learning process

throughout their career experiences, culminatesin a personal interpretive framework, en-compassing two major fields: a conception aboutthemselves as a teacher and a__system of know-ledge and beliefs concerning "teaching" as aprofessional activity.4

Several other authors have stressed the centralrole of teachers' self-representations (Ball &Goodson, 1985; Hirsch et al., 1990; Nias, 1989b)and of their subjective educational theories5 (e.g.,Clark & Peterson, 1986; Connelly & Clandinin,1988; Elbaz, 1981; eta) for understanding theirprofessional behaviour. Recent studies argue for amore narrative-biographical conception of the selfand the subjective educational theory.Markus and Wurf emphasize that the self-conceptis not a monolithical unity, but rather a collectionof different types of self-representations (Markus

& Wurf, 1987, p. 301). Siegert and Chapman addto this the temporal dimension. People definethemselves not only in terms of their actual lifesituation and the way they experience it. At thesame time they look back to whom they have beenin the past and who they could be in the future.The authors state that the temporal dimension inthe self understanding strongly determines the perception and the"actual process of personadevelopment (Siegert & Chapman, 1987, p. 144).In another article Markus and Nurius talk about"possible selves", namely "the cognitive

manifestations of enduring goals, aspirations,motives, fears, and threats" (Markus & Nurius,1987, p. 158). Since one never has access to thecomplete set of representations of oneself, Markusand Wurf use the term "working self-concept" or"self-concept of the moment", understood as "acontinually active, shifting array, of accessible selfknowledge" (Markus & Wurf, 1987, p. 306). Theauthors also make a link with the biographical perspective (and its narrative basis), when theystate that people combine their different self-

representations in a "current autobiography", "astory that makes the most coherent or harmoniousintegration of one's various experiences" (Markus& Wurf, 1987, p. 316). Polking-horne,emphasizing and advocating narrativity, writes:"... we achieve our personal identities and self-concept through the use of the narrativeconfiguration, and make our existence into awhole by understanding it as an expression of asingle unfolding and developing story. We are


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448 GEERT KELCHTERMANS

in the middle of our stories and cannot be surehow they will end; we are constantly having torevise the plot as new events are added to ourlives. Self, then, is not a static thing nor asubstance, but a configuring of personal eventsinto a historical unity which includes not onlywhat one has been but also anticipations of what

one will be" (Polkinghorne, 1988, p. 150).Reviewing the work on teachers' knowledge ,

Elbaz states: "'story' is that which most ade-quately constitutes and presents teachers' know-ledge" (Elbaz, 1990, p. 32). Others argue thatnarrative is the organising principle in teachersknowledge. People are "storytelling organismswho, individually and socially, lead storied lives.The study of narrative, therefore is the study ofthe ways humans experience the world" (Con-nelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 2). Nespor and

Barylske believe that the reflectively thematisingby teachers of their professional, knowledge ina research context can best be understood as a"narrative discourse". The stories that axe thuspresented should not be seen as reflecting specificmental processes (cognitions), but rather asinstruments to represent reality as it is experi-enced (Nespor & Barylske, 1991, pp. 806-807).Butt and his colleagues emphasize the autobio-graphic character of teachers knowledge. Anadequate conception of teachers' knowledge willreveal the deeper roots of this knowledge in the

person's past experiences. It also shows how asubjective educational theory develops and isused by the teacher. According to them thisimplies a biographical approach, that conceives ofthe subjective educational theory as"grounded in, and shaped by the stream ofexperiences that arose out of person/contextinteractions and existential responses to thoseexperiences. This knowledge and predispositionsto act in a particular way at this moment... isautobiographic in character" (Butt et al., 1988,

p. 151).Both the professional self and the subjectiveeducational theory develop throughout the in-teraction of the teacher with his or her profes-sional environment (interactionist, contex-tualised) and thus are conceived of as developing(dynamic). The approach from the biographicalperspective thus matches these views.

The data however learned that conceptions ofteachers' self and of their professional knowledgeshould go together, since both are interwoven in

-Retrospective

Professionalself

k

Prospective

Knowledge

Subjective

educational

Iheory

Beliefs

Figure 1. Components of the personal interpretive frameworks.

the teachers' interpretive framework. This ispossible by working with career stories. Through

the narrative character of the career story therepresentations of self and of the subjectivetheory remain intertwined with each other. It isonly in the final step of the analysis that both areseparated. The results of this analysis arepresented below. Figure 1 gives an overview ofthe concepts.

The Professional Self

How do teachers conceive of themselves asteachers? The answer to that question is not a

static one, but evolves over time. The concepts ofcritical incident, phase4 and person proved againto be very useful in reconstructing the(development of) the professional self from thecareer stories. I refer again to .the example above:The school board's decision destroyed Leo'sprofessional self as a remedial teacher. This alsoillustrated that the self is the product of the_interaction with the env^onmentTlF also showsthat professional self involves more than just anidiosyncratic construction by the teacher, al-

though the subjective perception remains ofcentral importance. The school board forced Leoto construct another professional self, namely asteacher of Grade 3 and thus no longer as the localspecialist in diagnosis and remediation of learningproblems.

Acknowledging the central idea of the inter-wovenness of present, past, and future in thebiographical perspective and the multidimen-

DescriptiveSelf image/

I Evaluative- Self e

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