Analyzing Teachers’ Stories

Authors

  • Anat Kainan Kaye College of Education

Abstract

This article presents an integrated socio-literal approach as a way to analyze work stories. It uses a case of teachers’ stories about the administration as an example. The stories focus on grumbles about various activities of members of the management of a school in a small town. The complaints appear in descriptions of the action, the characters, and, in particular, in the way the story is presented to the audience. The stories present a situation of two opposing groups-the administration and the teachers. The presentation of the stories creates a sense of togetherness among the veterans and new teachers in the staff room, and helps the integration of the new teachers into the staff. The veterans use the stories as an opportunity to express their anger at not having been assigned responsibilities on the one hand and their hopes of such promotion on the other. The stories act as a convenient medium to express criticism without entering into open hostilities. Behind them, a common principle can be discerned- the good of the school. The stories describe the infringement of various aspects of the school’s social order, and it is possible to elicit from them what general pattern the teachers want to preserve in the school.

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Published

2008-12-19

Issue

Section

Articles