Autobiographical Research Method In Teacher Research

This dissertation consists of two parts. The first part is mainly on Currere, one of the autobiographical research methods, which has been developed by William Pinar and his students since the 1970s in the process of reflecting on and criticizing the American primary and secondary education and the researches on education. Its main theory source is phenomenology, psychoanalysis, existentialism, stream of consciousness in literature. There are four steps of the method of Currere, that is , Regressive-Progressive-Analytical-Synthetical. Later, Pinar developed a kind of autobiographical research method called "the educational experience of literature". Several related issues, like free association and resistance, the paradoxical character of memory and the difference between the autobiographical research method and autobiography in literature are also discussed in this dissertation. With these autobiographical research methods, researchers, teachers and students can study the relations among school knowledge, life history and subjective meaningfulness in ways that may function self-transformatively, so that they can understand the essence of life an individual leads in school and the function of school in an individual's life. There is no specific study on Currere until now in China.The second part of this dissertation is mainly on the implication of Currere to teacher research in China. Researches done by elementary and secondary school teachers are very prevailing in our country in recent years. The author puts forward that research methods used by teachers should be some kind of autobiographical one. In view of the status quo of teacher research in China, we can see that autobiographical research method is needed. The researchers who study teachers also need to study autobiographically from the perspectives of relations between researchers and theory, theory and practice, the abstract and concrete and from the roles autobiographical research method plays in building political consciousness and inner dialectic.The author also reviews "the educational autobiography" practiced in China and points out that it is different from Currere in research subjects, theory levels and confinement of employment. Three cases about the educational autobiography are presented. Next follow two cases for the researchers who would like to study...