A Narrative Inquiry Into Teachers’ Experiences of Working With Hope

• Author / Creator

  LeMay, Lenora M.

• The research puzzle, in this study, evolved as I made sense of making hope visible in my interactions at a centre that studied how intentionally using hope enhances quality of life. Over a period of 12 years I developed a set of five hope-focused practices (LeMay, Edey, & Larsen, 2008). In this dissertation I considered three conceptions or ways of working with hope and hoping in education alongside a fourth conception, which I named a Deweyan-inspired narrative conception of hope. Following that I outlined the hope-focused practices (LeMay et al., 2008) along with other theoretical considerations. My research puzzle asked: What are teachers’ experiences with hope-focused practices in their curriculum making (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992)?
  I invited two teachers from two different school districts who were participants in ongoing professional development sessions to work alongside me to make sense of their experiences of working with hope-focused practices. Sheila, Carmen and I attended to their stories to live by (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999) using the commonplaces of narrative inquiry: temporality, sociality and place (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) from January 2012 to July 2013. As we moved from field texts to research texts, we co-composed narrative accounts of their experiences. After looking across their narrative accounts, I identified four resonant threads. The first thread was learning to live with hope in early childhood. The second resonant thread was being in the midst of embodying hope. The third thread was sharpening an embodied way of being with hope. The fourth resonant thread was the courage to be with hope (Tillich, 1952).
  By engaging in this inquiry I learned that hope matters but it cannot be imposed; the commonplaces of narrative inquiry inspire an understanding of a narrative conception of hope as an embodied lived experience; and the Deweyan-inspired narrative conception of hope makes it possible to live alongside the dominant conceptions of hope in education.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Narrative inquiry
  • Hope
  • Education

• Graduation date

  Spring 2014

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R38H41

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.