Individual Paper(s)
Reflections on using life history for research with a social justice agenda
Joan Smith
University of Leicester School of Education
I consider in this paper some of the issues I faced as a
researcher in using life history interview to investigate women teachers’
career decisions, as well as some of the strengths afforded by this approach
for research with a social justice agenda. The aim of the study was to seek
insights into women’s perceptions of the factors affecting their career
decisions, and as a part of that, to understand why it continues to be the case
that women are under-represented at headship level in the UK secondary sector,
even though they constitute more than half of the secondary teaching workforce.
The sample included 10 newly qualified women teachers, 10 mid-career teachers
with between 10 and 15 years’ experience, 10 late-career teachers with 20 or
more years’ experience and 10 female headteachers. This provided snapshots of
different stages of a teaching career. The women were asked one or two
open-ended questions, which elicited rich narratives. I describe in the paper
some of the strategies I used to code, organise and interpret the data. I argue
that life history offers a number of strengths: it offers scope for exploring
subjective realities; it allows narrators to reflect as they speak, which for
some can be a transformative experience; and it affords rich insights into the
reasons behind the decisions people make, that would not be possible via more
structured approaches. Whilst researcher involvement and bias are inevitable aspects
of life history research, I argue these need to be managed to the benefit
rather than the detriment of the study.
