A tale of two selves: A critical narrative inquiry into gender and systematic discourse in teaching

Through reflexive writing practices, this thesis examines the ways in which gender is inscripted onto identity through teaching practice and lived experience.

I do this by accounting for and presenting my current and past thinking using different genres (including autoethnography, narrative, fictional and letter writing) to illustrate the different facets of my self, and also to research and write my self. This is achieved in three stages. Part one is a fictional conversation built and woven for the text to achieve the intended effect of outlining the research method and significance of this study, a discussion of the literature review with expert authorities embedded, and a description of criteria for validity. Part two uses writing as a method of inquiry, whereby letters (using voices of two "characters"---both of whom are voices of my self) are crafted to interrogate my individual experiences. They were written reflexively using systematic sociological introspection. Part three is the analysis and the crafted letters are treated as data. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).