A Narrative Self-Study of Advocacy by an Educational Practitioner with Multiple Roles

Abstract

This self-study follows my work on three professional knowledge landscapes (Clandinin & Connelly, 1996). It was an effort at revealing both my knowledge-in-practice and knowledge-of-practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2004) in order to uncover understandings about my own use advocacy as a classroom teacher, a new teacher mentor, and a teacher educator on a university campus. Through the course of the study, my attention turned toward my own use of advocacy as a classroom teacher, a new teacher mentor, and a teacher educator on a university campus—the places where tensions occurred. Advocacy experiences in all three of these roles tended to be dependent on maintaining a delicate balance of positioning between myself, the student, the new teacher, or mentee, and another school official. I was also able to see the ways my personal practical knowledge was lived in and out in the various situations.