An Autoethnographic Inquiry into the Role of Serendipity in Becoming a Teacher Educator/Researcher

Source: International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Vol. 27, Iss. 7, 2014, p. 837-849.

This study inquires into the author's shifting ‘self’ as a researcher/teacher educator in teacher professional development.
The ‘self’ in question is acknowledged as being historically, culturally and locally specific.
It is also acknowledged as unfixed or unstable; constructed from and in response to various, and often competing, discourses.

The author uses an autoethnographic inquiry, and presents vignettes of the self/researcher/teacher educator embedded in the messiness and complexity of lived experiences.
This autoethnographic inquiry represents her attempts to make sense of these experiences. Central to the inquiry is an examination of the roles played by serendipity and by writing itself in the processes of sense- and self-making.