Mapping the landscape of professional inquiry as a form of teacher learning in New Zealand: a narrative inquiry into one teacher’s experience

In this narrative inquiry, we will explore teachers’ professional inquiry in New Zealand. We begin by outlining context-related issues that undergird the propagation of professional inquiry and provide a chronological portrayal of how inquiry originated as a form of teacher learning. Then, we apply a narrative lens on one teacher’s experience of professional inquiry to examine the ways that numerous forces have touched upon the professional inquiry and teacher learning milieu. The narrative insights that surfaced suggested that the external motivations attached to professional inquiry have stymied its teacher learning potential. Since these motivations play a key role in shaping teachers’ personal conceptualisations of purposeful inquiry, we theorised how they could be refined and reinvigorated. Investing into meaningful ways for teachers to understand external motivations attached to professional inquiry could produce more satisfactory teacher learning experiences. Furthermore, part of meaning-making through inquiry could involve teachers exploring the sociopolitical dimensions of their practices as well as the teaching profession; this could galvanise teachers into adopting a more active role in their learning as well as the education sector.