Desire, liturgy, andthe joint construction of narrativein a teacher preparation program

Abstract

Abstract Treating narrative as a social practice has enabled examination of the identity work accomplished through interactive story construction within various communities, including teacher preparation programs. Largely unaddressed in this literature is the presence of desire – the sense of longing conveyed through expressed wants, wishes, and hopes – and how it works in and through narrative practice. Following James K. A. Smith (2009), I posit that some stories may be liturgical in their conscripting of tellers and listeners into narratives that shape their identities and direct their desires. To explore this empirically, I examined desire in the joint construction of a professional identity narrative – teacher as lifelong learner – within an urban teacher residency. My analysis suggests that program leaders’ expressed desires of and for the novice teachers established the leaders’ authority and worked to conscript novices into the narrative. However, novices were actively negotiating the narrative and the desirability of the professional identity.