Volume: 18  Number: 1  Page: 3–26

Trio: Three (Auto)Biographical Voices and Issues in Curriculum

Devorah Kalekin-Fishman Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel

The three voices presented here are those of women teachers affiliated with Hebrew-speaking and Arabic-speaking branches of the Israeli educational system at different levels. Brought together when a curriculum on multiculturalism oriented to narrative as a teaching tool was implemented and tested in an in-service programme, each of the three had worked earlier on teams that compiled curricula with attention to cultural differences. In analysing the products of their experiences as well as connections of the curricula with (re)constructed life-stories, we discovered typical features of the educational milieu in Israel and aspects of how the teachers identify with their social positions - ethnic and professional. In the article, the interplay between curriculum and life experiences is revealed in the contrapuntal relation of a trio of voices with alternating entrances and interweaving stories. Clearly, the teachers' identifications do not conform to prevailing assumptions of fragmented post-modern selves. Principles that underlie the logic of teachers' everyday life in the guise of values and ideals disclose modern subjects, with firm commitments to a variety of cultural frameworks. The challenge that faces the narrative paradigm as an educational tool is to find the bridges that span different kinds of multiculturality.

Keywords: women teachers, life stories, multiculturalism, modern subject

2005 D. Kalekin-Fishman

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