INT. J. SOCIAL RESEARCH METHODOLOCiY, 1999, VOL. 2, NO.

3, 2 1 3 - 2 3 0

A story behind a story: developing strategies for

making sense of teacher narratives

TANSY S. JESSOP and ALAN J. FENNY

(Received 6 October I99H: accepted 29 September 1999)

Tbis paper describes a process of analysis and the development of representational strategies
in a narrative study. It takes the reader throiigb the often bidden steps inxolved in doing
researcb, and un\ eils some of tbe problematics of narrative and voice. Within the context of
rural post-Apartbeid Soutb Africa, tbe researcbers were positioned as outsiders, border-
crossing into tbe li\es of tbe researched, in tbe name of articulating tbeir voices. Tbe etbical
dilemmas ot this kind ot research arc examined, as is the perspective that the researcher is
positioned, not as an objective, all-seeing eye, but as a re-presenter from 'somewhere'. Tbe
heart of the paper analyses the development of different strategies of analysis, including
poetry and \ arious mapping, graphic and matrix techniques. Representational models are
de\'eloped progressively, in response to the dilemmas and complexities of re-telling 'a' story,
and the particular challenge of capturing the contradictory, partial and fluid nature of each
teacher's story. The research process culminates in a model which allows for a reading of
each narrative as complex, nuanced and intrinsically ambivalent. Against the backdrop of a
wider study of teacher narratives (on which tbis paper is based) and the policy context of
education, some conclusions about the implications of narrative study for teacher
development in South Africa are drawn.

Introduction

Recent writing on qualitati\'e research calls for a fresh emphasis on the

process of data analysis and raises key issues about voice and representation
(Bryman and Burgess 1994, Diversi 1998, Ely 1991, Miles and Hubernian
1994, Rinehart 1998). Narrative and life history studies, as relati\e
newcomers to the qualitative tradition, face particular challenges to prove
themselves as 'real" research with sound, ethical and open methods of
analysis and representation. They will not simply be taken on trust (Thomas
1992, Goodson 1992). Narrative and life history studies stand at the
intersection between the personal and the political, stories and history,
context and narrative, the teller and the told, identity and representation. At
best, reinscribing a 'real' life involves telling a 'story of action, within a
theory of context' whereby the tension between text, historical context and
the terms and conditions for the production of that text is made explicit
(Goodson 1992: 6). At worst, these narratives are divested of context, hiding
the relationship between the teller and the told, and privatising the tale that

Dr Tansy Jessop, FCO (New Delhi), King Charles Street, London SWIA 2AH. Alan Penny and Tansy
Jessop are both Associates to the School of Education, King Alfred's University College, Winchester.
Correspondence to e-mail: tansy.jessop(S^gems.vsnl.net.in

/nternatinnal Journal of Social Research Methodology

JSSN 1364-5579 nrim/ISSN 1464-5300 online ( 1999 Taylor & Francis Lid
^idr.co.uk/journals/tr/l3645579.hlnil
214 TANSY S. .lESSOP AND ALAN J. PENNY

is told. Paradoxically, life histories and narrative studies claim to articulate

the 'voice* of the marginalised, when in fact many 'moving tales of the
dispossessed' reproduce the conditions of their subjection by operating in a
'neutral' space outside of time, history, context and intentionality (Denzin
1991:2-3).
In this paper, we argue that the credibility of narrative research rests
not only on its capacity to make the connection between 'story* and social
reality, but also on its ability to justify the process of analysis and the
strategies of representation employed. This means that narrative research-
ers need to explore the broader relational context out of which stories are
told, making their position in relation to the research clear, and to lead
readers to understand the process of analysis and the strategies of
representation adopted. The former demands that issues of context, voice
and authorial position are clarified within the complex nexus of powder,
gender, race and class relations (among others) that exist in any research
situation, l^he latter demands an emphasis on the process-as-experienced,
which stands slightly at odds with the con\ entions of academic research,
with its tendency to 'neaten' up the rough edges of process in favour of
delivering a 'rhetoric of conclusions' (Clandinin and Connelly 1995: 7).
However, without a sense of the research process, readers of narrative are
faced with the challenge of accepting a pri\'ileged discourse, having not
been privy to the original exchange, while having to trust the rigour of the
analysis and representation, without knowing enough about how the
research was 'done'. IVIore generally, the lack of articulation of process-as-
experienced leaves the research literature largely silent about the strategies
and analytical tools being used for making sense of data. It lowers the level
of debate about data analysis and representation, to a set of techniques,
viewed in exclusion from the dilemmas and contradictions which ine\ itably
accompany- making the choices which constitute 'doing' research.
The focus of this paper is on the analytical and representational strategies
developed in the course of a study of rural primary teacher narratives in the
province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It describes and reflects on our
experience of 'doing' research and data analysis, taking the reader through
the steps by w hich a spiral of increasingly sophisticated conceptual tools were
arrived at through a process of extrapolation and critique, as much as
through trial and error. The first section pro\'ides an overview of the research
context, which is intended to inform the later conceptual emphasis of the
paper. This is followed by a discussion about voice and representation, which
provides the ethical backdrop to the main focus of the paper, which is the
articulation of research process, and in particular the development of
representational strategies which strain towards the telling of 'a story of
action, within a theory of context' (Goodson 1992:6).

The research context

The study took place in rural KwaZulu-Natal, an area widely recognised as

being historically disadvantaged by its position as a balkanised homeland
during the Apartheid years. It is an area of political instability, and one in
A STORY BEHIND A STORY 21 5

which thousands of people have died in the 1980s and 90s in struggles
between supporters of the rurally dominant Inkatha Freedom Party and the
more urban based African National Congress (see Gultig and Hart 1990).
Economically, the region has suffered from what analysts have described as
'stalled modernisation' (Deacon and Parker 1993) whereby the process of
modernisation has been held back by the convergence of ethnic values with
the repressive policies of Apartheid.
The region has weak social and education indicators, and is
characterized by poor school infrastructure in rural areas, demotivated
teachers, and inefficient central planning. Historically, schools for black
children ha\ e suffered great disparities in the provision of resources, both
human and physical, and in funding generally. The era of political struggle
has spawned a generation of children, adolescents and young adults who
have found the return to school difficult after years of adhering to the
slogan of 'liberation before education' (Hartshorne 1992, Naidoo 1990).
While radical and politicized pupils are mainly to be found in urban areas
and within secondary schools, deep rLiral areas have not escaped the legacy
of an era of school-children at the barricades. A generation of young
teachers deployed to rural areas from urban centres have themselves
suffered poor and disrupted education, as a result both of Apartheid and
the struggle against it.
In the main, the African teaching profession is heavily Linionised,
highly politicized, poorly qualified and lacking in the means or motivation
to bring about the quantum shift required to provide a quality education to
rural schools. Tensions exist between the radical teacher union, SADTU ,
to which the majority of teachers belong and, the more conservative sister
associations, to which many rural teachers belong. Low qualifications and
lack of confidence are a feature of the primary teaching profession. The job
of a teacher in the deep rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal is daunting. The size
of classes ranges from around 40 to well over 100 pupils, many of whom are
the children of illiterate agricultural labourers. In most schools there are
not enough classrooms to cope with the enrolment, and some children are
taught outside or on \erandas. Buildings are dilapidated, classrooms are
crowded, and furniture is rudimentary. Textbooks usually arrive late and
when they do arrive, they are often obscure. Within this context, it is not
SLirprising that the productivity of rural schools and the professional
commitment of their teachers is under question.
The study on which this paper is based represents an attempt to
provide a conceptual frame for theorizing about teachers' lives, their
work, and its intersection with their life histories. The research aimed to
elicit teacher narratives and life histories in a way which would shed light
on the complex arena where the professional and personal meet. It circled
around the stories of people's lives, their dreams, hopes and disappoint-
ments, to the life and memory of a country at war with its citizens,
through to questions of struggle, economic necessity and political
repression. It worked with the hope that we would learn something
important about the forces shaping teachers' work (and their responses to
these forces) by collapsing the culturally learned split between the
personal and the professional. With Bchar (1996) we believed that the
216 TANSY S. JESSOP AND ALAN J. PENNY

^personal voice, if creatively used, can lead the reader, not into miniature
bubbles of navel-gazing, but into the enormous sea of serious social
issues' (Behar 1996: 14).

The view from ^somewhere': narrative, voice and

representation

One of the key premises on which our research is based is that it represents
a view from 'somewhere' (Diversi 1998: 132-133). We were four white,
middle-class, urban-based academics from university institutions in the
UK and South Africa respectively. In our team were two women, one a
PhD student, the other a practising teacher, and two male professors of
education. The team had current and historical links with the South
African education system, and had experience of working in African
schools and universities. Our constructions of the social realities of rural
schools were shaped by our common, yet different experiences and
histories, and we were aware of this. We do not offer an omniscient,
scientific, all-seeing eye, a view from 'everywhere' in presenting the
narratives of teachers-as-told to us, nor do we believe that any research can
claim to pro\ide a view from ^nowhere'. People engage in research, and
their histories, actions and social biographies are part of its production.
Narrative inquiry has increasingly been used in education research as an
approach to understanding people's lives in relation to their work as teachers
(Casey 1993, Clandinin and Connelly 1995, Goodson 1992, Thomas 1995).
It falls within the broad parameters of interpretive social science in its
attempt to make sense of the relationship between the personal, political and
the professional. However, it goes one step further in arguing that people
understand their li\es and explain them through stories, featuring plots,
characters, times and places, and that these narratives not only represent but
also shape action (Bruner 1987, Somers 1994).
The study of narrati\ e is complex because of its location within clusters
of overlapping social relationships, and its intersection with identity.
Categories of identity such as race, gender, class, age, education, and
nationality are part of stories-as-told, against the wider backdrop of
historical and political relationships which together constitute the 'social
horizon' (Todorov 1984 cited in Casey 1993: 26). Teachers' personal and
private narrati\'es are told in relationship to the dominant (or public)
narratives of education and society, which set the context, and provide the
parameters in which teachers' voices are heard. The articulation of counter-
narrati\ es which challenge 'totalizing fictions' about the essential character
of education, social class and aspiration by stating the alternative, is a
crucial way in which narrative allows silenced voices to speak out (Somers
1994). Counter-narratives become powerful strategies for re-shaping social
realit\' by challenging the dominant (and normative) narratives often
associated with western, middle class, white, male identity. Identifying
counter-narratives among -rural primary teachers has been especially
powerful in challenging the common perception that people in deprived
situations lack agency (Chambers 1997).
A STORY BEHIND A STORY 217

In this study, the immediate context for the production of rural primary
teacher narratives was shaped as much by our presence as outsider
researchers, as by the insider perceptions of the teachers whom we
interviewed. Of 68 primary teachers interviewed, 80% were female, all were
black, and most had working class roots. The ideological problem of
representing the voices of constituencies outside of one's own direct
experience has been described by Giroux (1992) as a form of 'border-
crossing'. Kemp (1993: 28) describes the silences and dilemmas of border-
crossing across the boundaries of race and sexuality:
The very act of representation involves at least two parties: that which rc-presents and that which is
re-presented. The two are not exactly the same. Even when I speak for myself, I choose which me to
present to yoLi. Which part of me is most important to emphasize or hide? Representation is thus
always partial. 1 can never know all of you because you are always changing. I can never be you. I am
always crossing to understand you. to translate what you say into my language, my experiences.

The act of re-presenting the stories and voices of others is not a neutral
exercise, happening as it does within the context of a nexus of gender, race
and class power relations. To exclude it on the grounds of being impossibly
clouded by issues of difference and power howe\er, is to negate the
potential of scientific imagination in social research. It is also to den\' the
overlapping, intersecting and sometimes competing cluster of relationships
that are set up in an exploration which includes narrati\e and identity
(Somers 1994: 632). Undeniably, for the social researcher, 'border-
crossing' requires rigorous attention to process, honesty, and the ability
to regard one's interpretation as unfinished business. Not only is
representation an act of border-crossing but the identities of those
represented are fluid, partial, coniplex and contradictory. There are
narrati\"es within narrati\'es, silences and falsetto voices, and a continuous
(and unpredictable) dynamic between the teller and told. As Ellsworth
(1989) discovered, 'trust, risk, and the operations of fear and desire'
contribute to 'what we say to whom, in what context, depending on the
energy we have for the struggle on a particular day'. The articulation of
voice is the 'result of a conscious and unconscious assessment of the power
relations and safety of the situation' (Ellsworth 1989: 313). This has been
an important caveat for us in making claims to represent the voices of black,
working class, iTiainly women primary teachers living in rural areas in one
of the poorest provinces in South Africa.

The process of analysis: methodological issues

Teacher narratives were gathered through a process of what Siraj-Blatchford

refers to as 'dialogical' interviewing, which seeks to minimize the power
differential between researcher and researched (Siraj-Blatchford 1995).
Interviews have a conversational tone, are loosely structured, and allow lines
of inquiry to be pursued as they develop. They do not presuppose the
primacy of the inter\'iewer's frame, of reference. In theory, dialogical
interviewing is a useful tool as it reduces the impact of power relations on the
research event, and creates a climate of relative safety for participants to
-1 ^ TANSY S. JESSOP AND ALAN J. PENNY

articulate a voice on certain issues. In reality, implicit and explicit power

relations operate whatever the format of an interview, and these are
influenced by dominant narratives beyond the immediacy of the research
encounter. So, for example, our presence as academics, teacher educators
and, researchers provided a context for responses in the language of
education and theory, which valorized professional stories of education
above personal stories. This necessitated the use of various strategies of
cross-referencing and triangulation, both within and without the interviews,
in order to enable the respondents (and the researchers) to recognize and
challenge these orthodoxies, and to discover the meanings embedded within
the narratives. Among these were the tools of grounded theory, including
comparative analysis and the selection of multiple comparison groups over a
period of time (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Interviews, participatory work-
shops, surveys and document analysis formed the core data, and provided
scope for analysing teacher narrati\'es within and across multiple contexts.
In conducting the analysis, data were coded according to categories
generated in the course of reading the transcripts. Categories ranged from
the descriptive and biographical (age, gender, qualifications) to the
thematic (change orientation, sense of agency, personal values). Thematic
categories ckistered around abstract beliefs about the relationship between
education, access and development, and included ideas about knowledge,
power, justice and the ways things are in school and society. The system of
coding and categorizing went through a series of iterations as we refined
and challenged taxonomies that might lead us to proffer reductionist
conclusions from the teacher narratives. These refined categories were
applied across \^arious slices of data, from different coniparison groups, to a
point where we felt confident to distil certain common themes from the
narratives and to theorize from the data.
In the process of coding and categorizing, we used the technique of
writing anahtical memos to reflect on our own and participants'
assLimptions and voices in the data. This contributed to crystallizing our
ideas, thoughts and theories about teacher narratixes. It began as an
informal tool of analysis and de\^eloped into an emergent form of
representation as the study progressed. This aspect of using experimental
forms of writing as representation will be explored in greater depth in the
next section. An example of an analytical memo is quoted below:

It is interesting how resistance and consent cluster around each other and interact. This teacher
feels forced by her pupils to use the niirrati\ u method - i.e. to lecture facts at them - because they
refuse to problem solve, discuss or answer questions. What makes them so recalcitrant? Is it
tradition? Is it fear? Is it insecurity? Is it the belief that the teacher holds all knowledge? Is it
cultural? In the end the teacher consents to their resistance in order to survive, and delivers
narrative because they won't have anything else. Pupils are powerful shapers of what counts as
learning and what doesn't. They influence teacher behaviour to conform and survive, or to resist
and be miserable. Most teachers conform because it is easier. They also conform because
textbooks, exams, the architectural layout, and the hierarchies within schools collude with this
view of teacher-as-expert, knowledge-as-external, and pupil-as-receptacle.

In analysing the teacher naFrati\ es, a tension existed between the need to be
systematic and the imperative of holding onto the heart of each story.
Building a 'chain of evidence' from many different stories required us to
A STORY BEHIND A STORY 219

disaggregate the data for comparative purposes, and to aggregate categories

we had developed in order to draw out common themes in the narratives,
while still retaining a sense of each story as a whole (Tesch 1990: 88). To
some extent, combining the techniques of coding, comparing and
categorizing the data with the more discursive, holistic and creative process
ot writing analytical memos enabled us to keep the equilibrium between the
fine detail of analysis and the narrative heart of each story.
Theory began to emerge from the \'arious iterations of analysis that the
data underwent. The nature of our theories ranged from the general to the
particular; from relational to causal; from the personal to the political. Data
analysis led to theories which led in turn to questions of representation. We
experimented with a variety of representational forms in order to retain
something of the three-dimensional with all its 'unpredictability, contra-
dictions, tensions, communions, multiple interpretations, fluidity, frustra-
tions, and messiness' (Diversi 1998: 134). Representation from
'somewhere' required us to experiment with alternatives which would
invite the reader to challenge our interpretation with a different one.
Certainly, we were challenged by our own analyses and representations to
construct different ways of seeing and re-telling the stories. The
importance of trying to get representation 'right' in the sense of making
the process open, dialogical and evolutionary was underscored by our \'iew
that narratives are not simply reflections of reality but, shape reality.

Developing strategies for re-telling and representing

narratives

Many narrative and life history studies in education re-tell parts of

people's stories as the major tool of representation (Casey 1993, I'honias
1995, Witherell and Noddings 1991, Woods 1993). The strategy of re-
telling is often combined with a critical reading of the story, whereby it
is dissected and analysed in a way which allows the researcher to
theorize and make sense of the meaning of each story. In good narrati\ e
studies, life stories are told within the context of history (Goodson
1992). The strategy of re-telling has several advantages, in that the
reader is often given access to the original words of the teller, which can
make the narrati\e a compelling version of events. Yet, the limitations of
re-telling a story for research audiences are to be found in the uneasy
relationship between narrative and research: is this a story, or is it data
ready to be dissected and analysed?

The first approach: poetry-as-representation

The problem of representing narratives-as-research and research-as-

narrative led us to experiment with an alternative literary form. In line
with Tedlock (1983) and Richardson (1994), we considered poetry, defined
by Robert Frost as 'the shortest emotional distance between two points', as
the literary vehicle most consistent with the nuanced, staccatoed and, often
220 TANSY S. JESSOP AND ALAN J, PENNY

moving stories teachers told us. It also allowed us to re-craft the direct
words of teachers in ways which were less fragmented than the more
conventional form of using snippets of prose interspersed with critical
analysis. We wanted to respect the meaning of each teacher narrative and,
through an experimental form of representation, to allow the reader to get
as close to its evocation as tve had been in talking and listening to teachers.
We used much of the 'voice' of teachers in direct quotation (albeit recrafted
into poetic form), in the belief that this would allow for a closer and more
evocative reading of the exchange to which we had been privy. As
Richardson (1994: 522) observes, poetry is able to capture the fluid nature
of conversation particularly well:

When people talk, whether as conversants, storytellers, informants, or interviewers, their speech
is closer to poetry than it is to sociological prose (Tedtock 1983, in Richardson 1994). Writing up
interviews as poems honors the speaker's pauses, repetitions, alliterations, narrative strategies,
rhythms and so on. Poetry may actually better represent the speaker than quoting snippets in
prose.

Paradoxically, the use of poetry in rendering teacher narratives was both a

means of getting closer to the voices of those we interviewed, and a way of
nurturing and accepting our own voices in the process of representation.
Through giving 'voice' in poetic form to the feelings, thoughts and ideas
that emerged from each teacher narrath e, we were representing the data in
different configurations which enabled us to see and relate to the narratix'es
of teachers in new and different ways. This was one way in which we were
using writing as a 'method of inquiry', where, as in the case of writing
analytical memos, we might deepen our understanding of the meaning of
teacher narrati\'es. In retrospect, it was a process skill leading to new forms
of discovery, as niuch as a form of representation. We make no apology that
the *poems\ as {yroditcts, are at best 'onh' almost poetry' (Richardson 1994:
523). Within this process, the reconstruction of interview 'texts' in poetic
form clearly signalled an intervention from 'somew^here', that w^e, the
researchers, had reconstructed the text in a way which interposed our
authorial 'voice' and interpretation. The reader, confronted by an interview
recast in poetic form, is far more likely to be alert to the fact that the text
has been constructed by an authorial \oice, however close it may be to the
original w^ords of the speaker, as Di\ersi (1998: 133) stresses:

I am the author of these stories, and as such, have made important choices in the writing process
that carry my own interpretations of the lived experiences and define the possibilities of the
reader's interpretations.

Poetry does not use the conventional theoretical discourse of the social
scientist. It is evocative and often passionate. It is positioned. Readers
are invited to critique and interpret. In this study, we used poetic form
because we wanted to capture the w^ords, expressions, nuances, and
gritty social realities of some of the stories we heard, and we felt that the
imagery of poetry did this better than the more conventional discourse
of social science research (Richardson 1992, 1994, Rinehart 1998, Diversi
1998, Hones 1998). As an analytical tool, poetry heightened our
awareness of key themes in the data, helping us to identify them in a
A STORY BEHIND A STORY 221

more emotional and engaged way than complementary strategies like

coding and categorizing had. It was an experiential way into the data,
leading us to re-present the flesh-and-blood realities of teachers' lives, at
the same time as it developed in us research empathy. Its purpose was as
much in providing a more textured form of representation, as in
developing an experiential approach to analysing data which deliberately
tried to avoid depersonalizing voice.
The example cjuoted below expresses a teacher's frustration and an^t^r
at the socio-political realities which confront him. Violence, the destruction
of property and anarchy are his daily realities. Within this context, it
appears to him that nobody is listening. His narrative raises the question of
how education is able to function in areas that have been rendered
ungovernable, and evokes a sense of the absurdity of teacher in-service
programmes which are decontextualised and formulated in the safe havens
of education bureaucracies somezvhere else. F'or us, as researchers, it
underlined the chasm between public policy and social reality.

You shout your head off, but nobody hears that.

They slashed my jacket, trousers and shirts,
gunned down my chickens and goats,
put a spear through my T V screen,
and cut my fridge in half.
I shout m\" head off, but nobody
hears that. The lights go down, the children
playing in the streets scatter at the rat-a-tat
of gunfire. I have survived numerous
attacks, but this one was the worst.
If they'd just taken everything, it
would have been better. Some people
are wrecked by the violence the\'
lose their dreams. I shout my head off, hut
nobod)' hears that.

The use of poetry-as-representation has limitations, however. It cannot be

viewed tmcritically. Poetry as a communication tool is risky precisely
because it uses emotion and stark imagery, and interposes authorial voice
explicitly. It cannot be relied upon to work for readers, who ma\' find it
more distracting than illuminating. Certainly, for us, there were limita-
tions, notably that an unorthodox 'literary' form of representation would be
less likely to influence policymakers and effect change in the education
arena. Returning the meaning and implications of teacher narratives to
public policy and the institutions of education, would be rendered more
difficult by representations which heightened the personal and the
dramatic. As researchers, we found that using poetry lends itself to being
evocative and dramatic, is often rhetorical, intensely stated and somewhat
polarised. In many cases, this belied the subtleties, grey areas, mediocrity,
vested interests, tensions and contradictions within particular narratives.
What poetry provided in its closeness to the voices, feelings and emotions
of teachers, it lacked in detachment, abstraction and critical distancing
from the issues at stake. It was this conclusion which led us to develop a
second approach of representing teacher narratives through mapping and
matrix design.
222 TANSY S. JESSOP AND ALAN J PENNY

The second approach: representing through maps and matrices

A second approach was to devise conceptual tools in tandem with the set of
narratives and individual stories, using matrix analysis (Penny et al. 1993,
Miles and Huberman 1994). There was a progression in the development of
matrices from more reductionist, one-dimensional maps of social reality to
more sophisticated and subtle tools of analysis. The often contradictory
nature of each narrati\'e meant that we needed to de\elop a means of
analysis and representation which was as dynamic as possible. Attempting
to recast the web of factors influencing teachers' career choices through
web diagranis and bi-polar matrices had limitations, principally because of
the inevitable simplification inherent in the task. Both forms reduced
complexity substantially and failed to discriminate adequately. To address
these limitations, three forms of representation were arrived at each
contributing to the other.

Web mapping The first involved a form of web mapping. This was the
simplest of the forms adopted and involved mapping out key factors
impacting on a particular dimension. It did not attempt to differentiate
between each factor. Figure 1 represents the web of factors in the data which
appear to have influenced rural primary teachers' capacity for action. These
are a web of constraints and influences which have produced action and
counter-action in teachers' lives, and ha\'e created the conditions for their
choice of teaching as a career. Whilst the web diagram shows which factors
cluster around a particular concept, in this case, action, it fails to show' the
relationship between these factors, the extent of influence, or whether the
influence is contradictory or problematic. It is a brainstorming tool which
raises some issues but fails to discriminate between them. More

Survival

Poverty Fradition Education

Status Opportunism

Modernity t Action ) Social Class

Rural/urban issues

Limited Options

Perceptions of teaching

Gender

Frustration

Figure 1. Choosing teaching: web of factors influencing teachers* capacity to act

A STORY BEHIND A STORY 223

significantly, the web diagram fails to theorize the interaction between these
relationships and politics, power, knowledge and identity. The historical
context of action is unspoken, while particular categories of identity like
race, gender, ethnicity, social class and education are simplified by being
written-off in a word. At best, the web diagram started a process of critique
and development in mapping the set of narratives. At worst, it was a crude
and reductionist way of representing complex social realities.

Ouadraut matrices The second representational form developed was the

use of four quadrant matrices. A number of bi-polar matrices were
developed which placed in tension teachers' life histories; their views of
teaching, change and motivation; and their professional and personal ways
of seeing. This representational form had the advantage of plotting the
terrain in a series of polar tensions, enabling some of the relationships
between key issues to be shown in a four-quadrant matrix display.
Conversely, it had the disadvantage of dichotomising the key tensions in
ways which were, inevitably, reductionist. Nonetheless, the four quadrant
matrices were a valuable tool in the evolution of representational strategies
as it placed relationships in tension, allowing us to theorize about career
choice, action, narrative and identity in a slightly more complex way than
the web mapping had. Yet, it had limitations in that the network of
relationships which constitute career choice was not represented, with the
range of interactions between the personal, political and historical
simplified into four possible scenarios. Moreover, the use of typologies to
'categorize' teachers had a pigeon-hole effect which belied the more fluid,
complex and contradictory realities.
In figure 2, a matrix reflecting the tensions between teachers' motives
for career choice and their capacity for action, is used to construct a set of
typologies which show some of the dominant ways of thinking among rural
primary teachers. The axes against which teacher typologies are plotted
have been derived from common themes in the narratives. A cross-section
of career motivation variables is used along the horizontal axis, against
broader variables related to structure and action on the vertical axis. Along
the career motivation axis, service motives refer to the desire to be involved
in nation-building through education, the sense of 'ubuntu' (community-
richness), and the will to educate children as a human right. In contrast,
instrumental motivation to become a teacher is driven by concerns linked to
salary, status, the attainment of qualifications and urbanisation. Both
service and instrumental motives are played out against a backdrop of
individuals acting against the constraints of social structures. The vertical
axis of structure versus action holds in tension the inevitability of social
structures prevailing against the possibility of creative agents acting to
change social structures (McFadden 1996: 295). By agency, the definition
of a 'continuous flow of conduct' which intervenes to influence the course
of events and which occurs within the context of power relations, is taken
(Giddens 1979: 55-56, 256). Action.is thus an index of how powerful
individuals feel in relation to the social structures in which they find
themselves.
224 TANSY S. JESSOP AND ALAN J, PENNY

Actio 1

I. 2.

Idealist Pra^matist

Service Motive Instrumental Motive

4.

Reatisi Survivor

Stmcturc

Figure 2. Four teacher types in relation to career choice

Teachers in each quadrant were labelled according to the interplay

between their sources of moti\ ation in relation to structural conditions and
their senses of agency. In the first quadrant, teachers were termed idealist
because they entered teaching to serve the community, the nation or
children. They felt empowered to choose teaching on the basis of religious,
humanitarian, political or nation-building convictions, and they acted on
the basis of these convictions. However, in many cases, the idealist position
contained inherent tensions between the choice and its enactment, and
between the \ ision and the reality. These tensions were deepened by the
ambivalent motivation of some who entered teaching due to both idealist
and instrumental motives.
The second typology, pragmatist teachers, chose a career in teaching for
its perceived status, salary, and social mobility benefits. Their action w^as
based on instrumental concerns related to social attainment and the
acquisition of a more modern lifestyle in contrast to a rural or semi-tribal
past. They were acting to change their own position within traditional
social structures by exiting from them. Pragmatist teachers in the study
were often disappointed with the outcome of their choice, and felt trapped
within a new set of social structures.
Realist teachers, in the third qLiadrant, were those forced by circum-
stances and social conditions to choose teaching, usually by virtue of limited
alternatives or access available to them. Like idealist teachers, they expressed
a commitment to serve people, but had been unable to enter other helping
professions such as social work, medicine, ci\ il rights or nursing because the
social structures of Apartheid education and job reservation had prevented
them. Thus, teaching became a second-choice career, where the ideals of
service w^ere valued but, in reality, were difficult to apply.
The fourth typology of teachers were survivor teachers, who combined
a lack of power to act and articulate choices with instrumental motives for
entering the profession, primarily a desperate desire to escape the bonds of
poverty. These teachers were often from the poorest backgrounds and
perceived themselves as being at the mercy of the State, their families.
A STORY BEHIND A STORY 225

tradition and, the historical conditions of Apartheid. While, on the one

hand, they were the least powerful group of teachers, their remarkable
capacity to survive and achieve instrumental goals through teaching, belied
this sense of powerlessness.
In most cases, teachers were ambivalent about their career choice, and
there were layers of motivation which operated in contradictory ways. The
weakness of this typology model was its inability to reflect the contra-
dictions, partiality and fluidity of teachers' actions. It was reductionist,
glossing over the compromises that teachers were often forced to make in
the enactment of their 'choices' within the historical context of Apartheid,
and given their different life histories.

Circles These limitations gave rise to the final representational and

analytical tool developed. Borrowing the usage from Seve (cited in Price
1986) and developed by Penny et al. (1993) and using the four quadrant
matrices as a template, it was decided to represent relative emphases within
each teacher narrative by circles of three different sizes: the bigger the circle,
the greater the emphasis. In this form, no quadrant remained empty, and as
each axis represents a tension, even a small leaning towards one end
maintains at least a small element of the opposing pole. One can expect
overlap and, when two circles of the same size are found next to each other
on the same axis, this indicates ambivalence. Instead of using matrices as
instruments of comparative classification, they now become fairly subtle
tools of description and analysis. As in the case of the bi-polar matrix, the
axes were deri\ed from common themes distilled from all the narratives.
Using cameo analysis provided an alternative way of seeing, whereby the
teacher-as-person, in an individual case, was represented. This enabled the
reader to engage at a deeper level with one teacher's life history, his or her
story, and the tensions and contradictions within it. At the same time,
individual cameos were placed within the context of a broader study of the
narratives of rural primary teachers and thus, the stories could be read and
interpreted as part of the same 'social horizon' as other teachers within the
sample interviewed (op cit.). An example of a cameo analysis, using these
tools, is cited below.

Jahu's Story Jabu was the daughter of a policeman and a nurse. Her four
surviving brothers and sisters all pursued middle class or lower middle
class careers, including teaching and police work. Yet, for Jabu, a career in
teaching proved a difficult route to access: "... the black colleges, it is hard
to get into them. It was very hard, because they say they regret to inform
you that there are no vacancies....I stayed at home for three years searching
for a college'. Her determination to enter a career in teaching was inspired
by a combination of service and instrumental factors, evidenced, on the one
hand, by the view that education is the chief means by which respect for
humankind is engendered in society and, on the other, by the pragmatic
concern to get a higher education qualification relatively cheaply: 'well,
teaching is cheaper, yes... colleges are cheaper than universities'. This
226 TANSY S. JESSOP AND ALAN J. PENNY

ambivalence between instrumental and service factors ran through the

narrative. In relation to career choice, the interplay between these factors in
relation to structure and action is represented by the relative emphasis of
circles within a matrix (see figure 3a).
Rewards of the profession were to be found in being with children
especially when they grasped the concepts being taught: 'The nicest part of

Action

Idealist

Service Motive Instrumental Motive

Realist Survivor

Structure

Instrumental

Breadwinner

Extrinsic Rewards Intrinsic Rewards

Community Leader

Relational

Structure

Survivor

Fc.ir Courage

Realist Radical

Agency

Figure 3. Emphasis of factors in relation to career choice.

A STORY BEHIND A STORY 227

teaching, well, to be with children when teaching them and when you see
that ... what I'm saying, they get it...'. Conversely, the worst part of the job
was when children 'did not understand what you are saying, you try and
try, but you find the child is not coming around. That's bad'. Jabu
supported a relational view of teaching by suggesting that the personal
qualities of a good primary teacher were that, 'you must be kind... you must
learn to understand children, and love them'. The quality of the pedagogic
relationship was a central theme in her narrative, both in relation to
learning and enjoying being with the children.
There was a tension in the narrative betw^een the relational and the
instrumental though. Instrumental rewards were to be found in attaining
the respect and status that goes along with being an educated person, 'I
think if somebody is educated, he or she is not like somebody who is not
educated you learn to respect yourself, you learn to respect others...you
know more things in the world...'. The idea of becoming 'somebody'
through education, paralleled her \'iew that further study w^as important for
its own sake. In spite of Jabu's observation that qualifications did not
necessarily make teachers better at their work, she was studying further.
Yet, in reply to a question asking why she w^as continuing with her studies,
her answer was straightforward, and deeply instrLimental, 'Oh, for
increment. Yes, nioney increment'. Money was a guiding factor in Jabu's
narrati\e, influencing her towards an instrumental paradigm of assessing
the rewards of the job. In the niatrix analysis of career rewards, the
instrumental is set against the relational along the vertical axis, while a
siniple dichotomy betw-een extrinsic and intrinsic rewards runs along the
horizontal axis. Extrinsic rewards are those such as salary, promotion, and
status within the commimity, while intrinsic rewards relate to self-esteem,
confidence, the quality of pupil-teacher relationships, and a teacher's inner
sense of achievement. These tensions, and Jabu's positioning w ithin them,
are represented in figure 3b.
Scepticism about change was a key theme in the narrative. Jabu
expressed frustration at the way policy was expected to be translated into
action by teachers, without any consideration of the context or the
implications for teaching and learning. Primary schools were instructed to
admit all pupils w'ho applied for admission in 1996 as a measure to restore a
culture of teaching and learning in schools. The result was overcrowding
and further difficulties in creating a climate where learning might take
place. Hence, her comment that the Department of Education 'don't care'
and the pervasive feeling expressed by teachers that 'there is a little
congestion here'. For Jabu, with some 57 children in her class, the
expectation of change was not being met with accompanying support for
change. In her experience, the gulf between public policy and social reality
was wide, '... they've changed education, they want one eduication, but they
don't give us the resources for that new education... they don't give us the
new syllabuses... they are changing things by saying, not by doing' (authors*
emphasis). W^hile Jabu expressed legitimate frustration at the assumptions
of policy-makers, she also seemed completely reliant on external structures
to effect change: 'they [must] give us things to teach, they [must] give us
some tents, but they don't do that'. She was a fearless critic of policy-
228 TANSY S. JESSOP AND ALAN J. PENNY

makers, but she felt powerless to act in her individual capacity. Her sense of
agency in relation to prevailing social structures was minimal. In the matrix
analysis (see figure 3c), structure versus agency, along the vertical axis, is
set against the qualities of fear and courage along the horizontal axis. In
Jabu's case, she is characterized primarily as a pragmatist because she
displays courage by articulating the issues and suggesting changes but
within the constraints of existing social structures. In her view, the
solutions to her school's problems lie within the education bureaucracy and
in some reform of their attitude and actions. She is not radical in the sense
of having the courage to act out her agency and seek change against the tide
of pre\ ailing social conditions; yet she is not fearful of being critical of the
status quo. The matrix in figure 3c, represents these tensions.

Concluding Remarks

The cameo analysis served two purposes. Developing the final set of
matrices created tools for analysing the data in ways more subtle than either
the creation of the concept web or. the bi-polar four quadrant matrix did.
The partiality, contradictions and nuances in each story were better
reflected by representations of emphasis than in earlier versions which
tended to 'naiT down teachers to particular classifications. Cameo analysis
gave a more three-dimensional \ iew of teachers' stories. Secondly, it
allowed us to re-tell the story alongside graphical representation, using
narrati\e and matrix analysis in tandem. Our use of a hybrid form of
representation with text running alongside illustrati\'e matrices opened up
the narratives by providing an alternati\'e medium of interpretation. The
dimension which matrix analysis added to the narratives was the distance of
abstraction, where the closeness of the story was removed and theorized in
more abstract form, in direct contrast to our earlier experiment with poetic
representation.
The implications of a narrative study of this kind for teacher education
policy in South Africa, while not explicitly stated in this paper, derive from
the view that each story and 'voice' leads one into 'the enormous sea of
serious social issues' (Behar 1996:14). Elsewhere, we have argued (on the
basis of the wider study of which this paper is only a part) that teacher
narratives and the context out of which they have arisen, point to a serious
chasm between public policy and social reality (Jessop and Penny 1998).
For this chasm to be bridged, the 'teacher-as-person' needs to inform
policy-making and teacher development. Gi\en the complexity and
heterogeneity of teacher voices, this presupposes locating and devolving
the change process in education to schools and local communities. The
issues into which we are led through these complex and nuanced narratives
often concern career choice, career motivation, job satisfaction, and
teachers' sense of agency and ownership in relation to teaching, which
are not normally addressed in education policy-making in South Africa
(Jessop and Penny 1998: 395-397).
This paper has outlined some strategies available to researchers
wrestling with the problematics of data analysis and representation in a
A STORY BEHIND A STORY 229

narrative study. The story behind the story has been one of moving from
the certainties of reductionist models to the more complex approaches
which seek to reflect the network and layers of relationships influencing
narrative and action. The process-as-experienced has been described in
ways which reflect a progression in our thinking, while it is evident that
questions remain, one of which is how the study can influence policy and
action in education. The main focus of this paper has been to show the
development of a series of models and conceptual tools for analysing and
representing data, within the context of the choices, limitations and
purposes of the research. Our emphasis has been on the process as we
experienced it rather than on a finished product for analysing data and
representing it. Arguably, in qualitati\ e research, there is never a ^finished
product' which can be applied in the complex arena of making sense of, and
interpreting one's findings. Whilst the paper has reflected on processes
within a completed study, the analytical and representational issues remain
'alive', inviting critique, debate and the development of alternative models.

Acknowledgements

The inxolvement of Ken Harley and Gillian Penny in this research is

gratefully acknowledged. The support of the Committee of Vice-
Chancellors and Principals of LHv universities in the form of an Overseas
Research Students Award to Tansy Jessop, is gratefully acknowledged.

Note

1. South African Democratic Teachers' I nion (SADTU).

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