Title: Thinking this and that: teacher thinking beyond boundaries

Name: Ms Jennifer ALLEN, Faculty of Education, University of Newcastle.

Mailing Address: Faculty of Education, University of Newcastle.

In citing Calhoun

This journey is not the journey of the 'researcher' upon the 'researched' rather it is the account of the paths of both as they cross. It is these encounters that, as suggested by Arendt, will help to explore that which remains hidden in that which appears so clearly. The who of each person "which appears so clearly and unmistakably to others, remains hidden from the person himself, like the "diamon" in Greek religion which accompanies each man throughout life, always looking over his shoulder from behind and thus visible only to those he encounters.' It is to begin an exploration into teacher thinking that moves beyond conceptual and perceptual dualities. This exploration will seek out and challenge the many barriers and threads that continually weave a false covering over the aporetic caverns that lurk underneath existing 'definitions' of teacher thinking. It is to regard the research process as an encounter and adventure where aporias are embraced as part of the everyday search for meanings; in this case the meanings given to teacher thinking.

This list of dualities grows in the life of educational discourses, as oftentimes an insurmountable barrier to moving forward, backward, or should I say onward and within. The ongoing disputation of universality and individuality, of educational discourses as discrete discourses, or the need for shared understandings, of rational or existential description, of acceptance of givens or critique of all, of leviathan or liberation, of form or content, of fact or value, of historical constructions or discursive deconstruction, of knowledge as immanent critique or immutable illusion. This paper contends that teacher thinking is located within a context that runs across educational disciplines and yet requires an analysis on the part of each discipline to describe and in some cases prescribe the conditions of teacher thinking.

The many contradictions that appear to plague teacher thinking are given prominence when the dualities are regarded as opposing, not complementary or faces and fragments of the same dilemma, or even mirages on the journey of discovery. Building on the construction of supposed dualities teacher thinking, particularly in relation to the reflective practitioner, is often defined in opposition to other concepts where teachers are defined as 'unreflective', 'uncritical', 'accommodating and hegemonic intellectuals', involved in 'ritual and mythic action'.

In climbing down from the umpires' box and moving amongst the everyday lives of teachers I wrestle with the axiom of 'either/or' and 'and/is', and within prejudice and possibilities, endeavouring then to carry essentia in search of existentia. I find myself in the "otherwordliness of an alien landscape". It is in this landscape that myself and the six teachers involved in this research journeyed to explore teacher thinking.

I acknowledge that this paper could be regarded as describing only 'one path' and that this could, in part, suggest that there is a 'right' way to proceed. This account is not naïve, however, of the dangers of interpretation and the role of the reader. Whilst I will be comfortable in reaching the 'end' of this part of my journey with unanswered questions and hopefully a doubting that will never desist, this is again a tension of the written account, which is itself a dialogical adventure. The best to hope for at this point is to make many of the rules of engagement as explicit as possible. It is emphasised then at this point, that this research journey did not seek a solid rock path that would emerge from the chaos like a 'phoenix from the dust' rather it acknowledges that seeking only a linear path through the expanse of dialogue is to constrain the concept of aporia. This research process, declares the possible danger inherent in Burbules interpretation of "seeking to go on", where seeking a "right" way to proceed assumes that there is always a way forward to a destination. The work of Sarah Kofman is particularly helpful here as she also returns to etymology to regain an appreciation of aporia that is not linear and predestined. Sarah distinguishes the greek word odos, as a path connecting knowns, from poros, which is a passage across a chaotic expanse, where no passage yet exists. Burbules also acknowledges the importance of these two kinds of transition out of doubt. Whilst Kofman notes that the passage across a chaotic sea is an arduous poros Burbules suggests

This is not a process of argument that will lead to higher and higher truths it is an 'ongoing engagement with difficulty - and, in this, to embark on a journey with an unknown, unknowable destination'.

In making our way back through history it is hoped that we can critique the narrative realism that could be imbued in this text. This text is not a neutral medium but a social and cultural activity located in time. Whilst the focus of a research text is often as an account 'of ' or 'about' something that 'already exists' or has 'existed', it is imperative to also note the 'productive' potential of such a text. It is to note the effects of textuality and the role of texts in signifying, producing and disseminating binary oppositions. It is also to note that the definitions of 'reflection', inherent in accounts of text as narrative realism, can privilege acting as "habiltualised" and effectively hide the "workings and effects of power through texts." Rather this paper, in exploring its own research problem and methodology and inextricably linking these, privileges reflexivity that considers the "way in which our methodologies, dualisms, frameworks and categories, all of the basic intellectual 'tools' of research, are implicated with power" and how they are historically, socially, culturally and politically located.

Whilst many dualisms were explored in the introduction of this paper there are a number that relate specifically to the 'pre-text' of the methodology of this research. Primarily, these relate to subjectivism, objectivism and empiricism and the hope to value both the richness and fragments of each of these concepts as complementary. Rather than constructing these as binaries, which is often how they are understood, it is the hope to move behind, around and beyond these dualities. This is evident in the debate between critical social science and positivistic social science, particularly as it relates to subjectivism and objectivism. Critical social science claims that positivist social science fails to acknowledge adequately the social forces that act "behind the backs of participants" and that, whilst it does identify external 'determining' factors this identification is very narrow and problematic by attempting to reduce them to causal variables . Thus within positivistic social science the subjective component of action is marginalised if not silenced, alternatively the neglect of methodological questions within critical social science has also been criticised by positivists.

Of particular interest in Morrow's paper is the discussion of the debate between critical realism and critical theory and the possibility that "epistemological and methodological pragmatism does not necessarily require ontological scepticism-the suggestion that we cannot confidently posit realities independent of our consciousness". Alternatively in a move beyond the empiricist and subjectivist divide Morrow supports the convergence or "ecumenical" paper developed by Outhwaite. In considering scientific realism, hermeneutics, and critical theory Outhwaite sought the "compatible" within these theories. To Outhwaite, they are not only united in their critique of positivism but in the conception of contemporary social science. It is here that Outhwaite would argue such a meeting is possible.

We do not walk alone on our path and many are walking behind us, before us, along side of us and around us. Behind in the pursuit of a way beyond dualities are Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Merleau-Ponty noted that in one integral duality people become pure spectators whilst simultaneously the world becomes le Grand Objet. Whilst in some respects Merleau-Ponty's theories were postmodern whether he was a postmodernist has, however, initiated debate. Initially his theories were based on a reflective philosophy that, whilst he was criticised for this, did not suggest reflecting on the unreflected, nor linking philosophy to lived experience. He argued that "assuredly life is not a philosophy" and that "description is not the return to immediate experience" for "one never returns to immediate experience". Nevertheless he does suggest that the question is whether we are to try and understand immediate experience and that to attempt to express it "is not to betray reason but, on the contrary, to work toward its aggrandisement." For Merleau-Ponty philosophy is reflection and without it "life would probably dissipate itself in ignorance of itself or in chaos". Although commendable in his intent to overcome duality he was in danger, as is this paper, of entering the realm of philosophical monism. We are reminded that the integration or unification of divisions does not necessarily mean the fusion or disillusion of these divisions into one whole, a understanding, but rather the recognition of multiple fragments that shape our understanding. But his theories do enter the postmodern arena when he suggests that reflection should reject all instruments that have been provided for it, and place itself in an alien landscape where it can be redefined through ontological interrogation. Philosophy, he contends, must move beyond psychological and transcendental reflection and leave behind all language associated with these. We must seek a "language of coincidence" of "making the things themselves speak" rather than a language where the philosopher is the organiser, where meaning is not associated with a word, "but the lateral relations, the kinships that are implicated in their transfers and their exchanges" are privileged. He also argues that there is a dialectical relation between the silence of the origins and language for in breaking the silence "language realises...what silence wished but did not obtain," for silence is the outworking of reflection. The grappling with silence not just the spoken will be valued in this paper.

But reflection cannot be the only focus of philosophy as those on the path beside us have reminded us. Reflection is embraced by reflexivity where pragmatism and the bond of thought to action are integral to linking philosophy to transformation. What is particularly relevant from Merleau-Ponty's work for this paper is his explication of 'reason' and vision. Although postmodern in some aspects of his work he did not reject or disavow reason and considered the link between rationality and enlightenment. Here his link of rationality to "reasonableness" and the aim to reach uncoerced agreement with others through unrestricted dialogue is suggestive of Habermas's communicative ideal. Furthermore Merleau-Ponty argues that we can overcome the duality of self and other "because an anonymous visibility inhabits both of us, a vision in general." In extending his concepts of rationality and vision this research will explore both, in linking the self and other, and explore the potential and impossibility of unrestricted dialogue. Furthermore Merleau-Ponty has assisted in conceiving of a philosophy that re-embraces physical sciences and does not, as hoped by Husserl, have to fight to become a rigorous science in its own right.

Whilst the search for meaning could be located just as a grappling with ontology, discursive moments, self-stylisation, and philosophical reflection this would silence and marginalise lived experience. Just as suggested earlier there is the danger of reducing everything to text and thus as Derrida would suggest, unending différance. Nor, as Wittgenstein would suggest, can meaning be reduced to mere use. Wittgenstein's philosophy of language was bound by language itself and did not cross this boundary "beyond which hermeneutics lies". Lived experience will not be examined as something 'other' than language, as something 'other' than philosophy but as Gadamer would argue they are "affiliated" entwined in a mutual belonging.

This paper then is attempting to bring to the surface the dissonances between, around and within espoused theories and practice, the 'actual' and the 'real'. It is a critique that works from within the categories of existing thought and everyday lives of teachers, describe them, radicalise them, and explore in varying degrees both their problems and their unrecognised possibilities. What is required is that we be prepared to place ourselves "at the standpoint of others" but also acknowledge the possibility that "we may be highly motivated not to see our practice as others see it." After each transcript of events was prepared as a draft copy, from audio or observational data, the narrative record was discussed with each participant to explore a 'shared' perception of the events. We studied the transcripts and observational data for 'silences' as well as the 'spoken.' This shared exploration of the narrative records searched for a richness of interpretation that included possible themes, notable instances and omissions that might emerge and could be coded. The records were however considered as narratives not a collection of disparate and divided statements that described 'sets' of dislocated events. Whilst the initial interview began with collecting some descriptive information from this point the discussion was driven by the participant. My role became that of facilitator and reflective other and critical friend within a critical and supportive community. The narrative records and their interpretation, particularly the emergent themes, omissions and indeterminancies, were continually revisited throughout the research process.

Through immanent critique an understanding of the object as 'actuality' would manifest the object as false, exposing internal and external contradictions, contradictions that would remain predominant as a Hegelian influence on definitions of immanent critique as a continued debate. Calhoun suggested that the key in this philosophical theory is "the tensions and contradictions that underpin existing reality and point both to its situation in a larger historical reality and to the possibilities of transcendence".

Immanent critique according to Horkheimer confronts the disparity between ideas and reality. The task of the individual as critic is to expose that the given is not a mere fact, that to understand it to be actuality is also to criticise it by showing what it could be but is not. To Horkheimer theory and history are intertwined and if a theory is correct, it will be evident in history. In this way the ideal of a free, self-determining society is not merely an 'ought' but a possibility, an immanent, historical potential. Held discusses this immanent, historical, potential in Horkheimer's work within the context of praxis. This praxis is historical, political and epistemological and the Hegelian transformation of "practical philosophy" into a philosophy of praxis is realised in Horkheimer's definition of immanent critique. The concern to maintain a philosophy of praxis that was not ahistorical but historically immanent was also prevalent in the work of Habermas. What is needed according to Habermas is a critique of functionalist reason, which can be obtained only when a systems perspective is integrated with a communicative model of action. But this critique should not only focus on functionalist reason but should encompass all theoretical discourses. As suggested by Calhoun:

Held also contends that to comprehend something we must, to begin with, perceive it in its immanent connections with other things and examine the conditions under which it exists and becomes. It is the exploration of what these 'other things' and 'conditions' signify within a historical discourse that challenges 'epistemic gain'.

Calhoun describes immanent critique as:

Critique, may also be driven by a sense of transcending direction through continued change in practice. "Dramatic personal and social change becomes possible by becoming aware of the way ideologies-sexual, racial, religious, educational, occupational, political, economic and technological- have created or contributed to our dependency on reified powers."

It is here that Habermas would differ from deconstructional discourses. Foucault as an example would claim that it is not possible to go beyond power whereas Habermas espouses the conditions necessary to be freed from the nexus of power. Postructuralist philosophical theory would argue that this claim is an impossibility. This criticism of Habermasian critique is also recognised by this paper and has and will influence the exploration of 'definitions' of power and power relations. Habermas would however maintain that although cognitive interests are the transcendental conditions of knowledge they are themselves naturalistically grounded. This concept is vital to an understanding of immanent critique. Critique does not arise from the philosophical ideals of theorist alone but rather it arises from the concrete structures of human life. In relation to the debate over the transcendent nature of immanent critique Benhabib states:

Also of interest to this paper is the need for 'universal valid notions' within immanent critique. The task of critical theory was one of immanent critique that "merely required pointing to the discrepancy between the basic liberal values of freedom and equality proclaimed by bourgeois society and the objective realities of economic irrationality that could be subjected to human control". Critical theory did not need to employ criticism from outside because it could employ a form of ideology critique whose message was potentially available and sensible to the subordinated classes. As such it sought to explore human reason and to enact freedom through enlightenment, empowerment and emancipation. Habermas also sought a universally valid communicative process. Where do we locate the concepts of ideology, vision, hope and freedom if they are not universally valid?

The journey to critique the ideological, political, and historical context of the discourses surrounding teacher thinking continues now with knowledge and being as fellow passengers. As such immanent critique places praxis as central in portraits of critical reflection but what of theories of teacher thinking? This paper is borne of the hope that discourses of teacher thinking encourage a critical response. Dewey, who is oftentimes used in the debates over teacher thinking, described thinking as "a method of reconstructing experience." Thinking was portrayed as reflection and involved 'recursion' through a number of cyclical phases beginning with an intentional endeavour to discover specific connections between action and consequence. Through this recursion a hermeneutic modification comes into being. Whilst Dewey is not describing an examination of the contradictions between the actual and ideal, the need for critique to be defined in respect to action and change is supported by both Dewey and within immanent critique. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, thought and experience is also a focus of both. Critique as pure 'theory' is regarded as deficient, and without the link to action (praxis) is naively idealistic. Young suggests it is not enough to have an immanent theoretical focus, but for critique to be historically immanent it has to be reflected in changed lives, and ultimately changed practices and culture. Critique then within the definition of immanence is inextricably linked to action, with practical intent.

It is such a conception of critique that emphasises the distinction between earlier definitions of teacher thinking, critical thinking and critical reflection. Critical reflection is inextricably linked to a conception of critique that is immanent and committed to concerns of validity, ideology, and power relations, in view of understanding knowledge and being. Through immanent critique critical reflection also aims to assess the breach between ideas and reality; to examine the relationship between actuality and ideal; to examine the contradictions between the external and the internal; to examine problems that arise from human encounters in everyday experience; to maintain a utopian potential and vision for the future; and to recognise the historical contextuality of knowledge, and yet sustains the possibility of critique in being.

Critical reflection is "of thought and question, as to its meaning, its conditions, its goals...in relation to what it does". It is not then a monologist authority or voice, but dialogically defined within discursive practices of ideology and vision. In examining the 'latent puzzle', however critical reflection is also linked to immanent critique, to praxis. Critical reflection is not thinking that 'objectifies' context and thus excludes it as neutral, known, and monological. Furthermore it is not concerned only with transcendental critique that sanctions disregard for the 'reality' of being. Rather it is concerned with critical reflection that is driven by a sense of transcending direction or 'vision', of imagination, of possibilities which lives within history, critique and praxis.

Hermeneutics argues that the researcher must enter the worldview and cultural perspective in which the phenomena is located and thus surrender efforts to interpret from a 'neutral' or outside 'position'. In the hermeneutic world we search for verstehen through seeking and contesting a common ground of knowledge within worlds which are incommensurable. The richness of hermeneutics seeks to overcome objectivism and counter relativism, not so much through a rejection of the notion of reason and its universalist pretensions but a radical reconstruction of what it means to be rational. Gadamer's concept of the mediation necessary when differing worldviews meet is of particular interest in this paper. Within the dialogical dimension of this meeting and the birth of hermeneutical moments in ruptures in intersubjectivity Gadamer helps this paper to unite hermeneutics with the aporias present in everyday lives. It is to strive continually for description, interpretation and understanding within a world that is not immediately understandable and privileges a reflexive dimension of hermeneutics. This paper hopes that as we explore teacher thinking that the familiar will become novel and the novel familiar but also recognises that some things will remain unfamiliar and alien and that at times we should rest in this.

To quote Madison:

For Madison, like Rorty, rationality is integrally linked to the linguisticality of all human experience and thus the mediation of the "unending differences", that plague shared understanding, is possible through conversation and dialogue when there is the desire for common understanding and agreement. Unlike Madison's conception, however, this dialogue, or common understanding need not however reach agreement. This paper will wrestle with the possibility of a shared and common understanding that rests in disagreement and also the apparent "rationality" that argues, that because understanding is language-bound it must bow to relativism. As Gadamer reminds us "there is absolutely no captivity within a language" rather it is an "infinite realm of possible expression" and thus it is the task of hermeneutics to maintain the openness and possibilities of human discourse but also to note that conversation is the "ultimate context" in which knowledge can be understood. Within hermeneutical interpretation there is a place not only for understanding but also explanation, both bound up in the view that the reader is a knowing player in the construction of the world and understanding is self-understanding. It is to release the conception of objectivity, subjectivity, and relativism from views of rationality that are overwhelmed with positivistic understandings of "science". It is to privilege the self, self-reflection and self-understanding and create and recreate spaces for these in "science". It is to assume, in this paper, that interpretation will evolve holistically as the 'players' are constantly being shaped and reshaping themselves. Teacher thinking as saturated by self-reflective moments, fragments of self-understanding, and the finitude of its claims to knowledge, has been marginalised in positivistic understandings. This paper, in both problem and method will seek interpretation that evolves holistically.

The theories of critical realism, critical theory and poststructuralism also meet in this research endeavour. Whilst all differ in many aspects their critique of positivism is shared. In this paper critical realism is valued in seeking to privilege the reflexive and subjective in grappling with a 'post-empiricist' metatheory of science. In seeking to redefine the relations between epistemology and ontology critical realism challenges the polarisation of positivism and postmodern relativism suggesting the necessary meeting of empiricism and objectivism. Moving beyond the correspondence theory where truth mirrors reality critical realism creates a space for a radical reworking of ontological realism where, as Bhaskar suggests, the strengths of both deductivism and contextualism can be incorporated. Without the recognition of the 'intransitive' as well as the 'transitive' Bhaskar contends that we succumb to postempiricist relativism where thought becomes "bereft of intra-discursive conditions and rational controls". Bhaskar also contends that it is in this alternative to ontological skepticism that the hope of human emancipation is advanced. Furthermore Morrow notes, as does this paper, that the 'reflexive turn' is privileged in such an interpretation, whereby the history and sociology of the sciences "becomes a necessary basis of their intelligibility and justification."

Critical theory has been significant in emphasising the need for the ongoing conversation between theory and practice, the ideological and communicative underpinnings of reality and the contextualising of meaning. It recognised the dislocative force of positivism in isolating the vision and ideals of alternative ways of knowing and denying the place of lifeworld in linking knowing and acting. It bought to the fore immanence, power relations, knowledge constitutive and emancipatory interests. Alternatively, whilst this paper challenges positivistic rationality and espouses the need to critique power/knowledge relations and interests, it links critical theory and critical realism to provide a space for alternative scientistic understandings. The hope is not to replace positivistic understandings but to regard them as only one of the many fragments that represent what is known as rationality. What is needed according to Habermas is a critique of functionalist reason, which can be obtained only when a systems perspective is integrated with a communicative model of action. But this critique should not only focus on functionalist reason but should encompass all theoretical discourses. This paper then challenges the split between objectivity and subjectivity, the 'transitive' and the 'intransitive', the deductive and contextual, the ontological and the epistemological. It is however also aware of the danger of seeking to be all-inclusive and will tread this path carefully.

It is not only the meeting of critical theory with critical realism but also postmodernism that has been influential in this paper. The ongoing debate between critical theory and postmodernism has borne the concern with aporetic moments. In seeking to critique emanicipatory goals 'for all', 'truth' and the grand narratives that appear implicit in critical theory postmodernists have challenged the constructive power of discourse and the nexus of power and knowledge. Power relations are not thought, as with critical theory, to only distort knowledge but that knowledge itself is borne of these power relations. Also borne of advocacy and the desire to give voice to the marginalised postmodernism engages with research as a social practice rather than a producer of transcendental 'truth'. To postmodernist writers the quality of interpretation presents a multiplicity of meanings and nothing is either inherently bad or good. The quality of interpretation is to recognise its complexity as discursive practices and power relations weave a social, historical and cultural web of understanding. To grapple with interpretation is to be confronted with its own richness dependent on how fully and well we develop the various alternatives indeterminacy presents. It is to embrace the catalyst of discovery and seek alien territory. Yet we do not venture into the aporetic caverns consumed by postempiricist relativism bereft of intra-discursive conditions and rational controls, for then we would limit our description of the cavern and only give voice to selected corridors. Similarly we appear to 'know ' when we are confronted by such a cavern or dilemma in everyday life and which caverns will need to be 'conquered' and which can remained, for a time, unexplored. At this point in the journey then will realise the importance of how we venture forth and what we are not only prepared to confront but also leave as 'taken-for-granted' until another day. To uncover 'all' may be a possibility but one that is caught up in the web of time and space, of the historical, ideological, cultural, political, social, structural and individual contexts.

In searching for a "new mapping" of ethnography and emancipatory social practice McLaren contends that field researchers do not only undertake their research in a field site but within a field. This field is no longer considered as just the geographical site of the research but a field constituted by competing discourses that contribute to a "variegated system of socially constituted human relationships...where geographical vectors of power crosscut the cultural terrain under investigation". It is here that we are confronted yet again with aporia, for our research this site is contested terrain, where disjuncture, rupture, contradiction, harmony and control meet as knowledge, meaning and power relations are discursively located, constructed and acted. Whilst building in part on the work of McLaren the research perspective of this paper does not limit our site to a "variegated system" but encompasses many systems of meaning. All actors are participants involved in this process and contribute not only as cultural workers involved in the active production of discourses, located and constructed by historical, political and social realms, but as individuals who bring their lifeworlds to this site. It is here imagination, ideology, vision and critique are tossed on the waters of structure and agency where the dialogical construction of the everyday can be confronted and confront cultural discourses. In considering the cultures of teachers, interviews and observations will thus explore both the lifeworlds of each teacher and the sense of a 'collective' and shared knowledge of the professional lives of the participants.

Alternatively the author can be a source and an integral part of the 'data' itself, not just the 'gatherer', and rather than just the intentional, the 'unintentional', and the 'otherworldliness' of research can be privileged. Furthermore the discourses and power relations inherent in structural and systemic considerations are isolated in the grounded theory intention of concentrating on a phenomena.

Another branch of phenomenology, namely hermeneutic phenomenology that was formulated in European social theory has also been a significant influence on this paper. Whilst Husserl's phenomenology centred primarily with the individual 'Cartesian ego', the description of the abstract cognitive structures, and the juxtaposition of subject and object, Heidegger formulated an existential phenomenology which focused on the interpretation of being and 'lived-experience', as phenomena present themselves in human existence. Heidegger suggested a very radical voluntarism for the human sciences. Heidegger noted two ontological attributes of modernity, whereby woman and man became a subject amongst objects and the world became a representation. Rather than separating the subject and object Heidegger argued that both belonged to the world in a fundamental relation and thus understanding involved an ontological inquiry. Everyday understandings remain implicit as we live too much within it to demand that it become explicit. Understanding becomes more "knowing one's way around" and undergirded by care, the 'care-full' of having to do with things, rather than a "kind of knowledge". Heidegger links Dasein or being-in-the-world to temporality and understanding oneself is to consider projecting one's possibilities and potentiality. Heidegger thus conceives of the difference between beings and Being. It is however Heidegger's, along with Gadamer's synthesis of phenomenology and hermeneutics, that is most influential in this paper.

The historical moments and influences that have been described thus far all bring with them the legacy of questioning the 'Cartesian' and 'positivist' assumptions that have so often set the agenda for social science research and philosophical thought. This questioning created the spaces for the ethnographic, the phenomenological, the hermeneutical and the critical to meet. These legacies do not rest as something we move on from rather they saturate the very soil in which new research directions grow. We will move on from the dilemma many wrestle with of trying to point to a time when there is a 'visible' transition to a 'new' science, and acknowledge the embeddedness of all that has gone before. Morrow notes this embeddedness as one of three key analytic questions for analysis necessary in understanding science as a specialised form of discourse. Morrow also questions the "systematics or logical structure of a science" and" logically what kind of method and form of explanation are or should be characteristic of a science?" He considers "its history, social embeddedness, and social construction and what is the nature of the community of inquiry that produces science, and how is this related to the nature of scientific knowledge?" and "its cultural implications as a perspective on reality questioning what is the broader meaning of science, what is its relation to power relations, ideologies, and values within a society?"

This research process describes a heuristic juncture of historical origins within ethnography, phenomenology, hermeneutics and immanent critique. It is born of ethnography as it shares a concern to explore the culturally shared perceptions of everyday lives. Unlike traditional understandings of ethnography it is not located in a physical site nor does it separate the observer from the observed. It is constructed, constituted, contested and conducted in a field of competing discourses of human relationships, power relations, cultural, historical, political, social, ideological and visionary terrain. The participants are not subjects to be observed but actors involved in this process and in the active production of discourses, as they each bring their lifeworlds to this site. This site is not only a world to be described and understood but contested terrain, where disjuncture, rupture, contradiction, harmony and control meet as knowledge, meaning and power relations are discursively located, constructed and acted. In this way this paper hopes to privilege not only description and a mapping of everyday lives but indeterminacy and contestation as teachers wrestle, in pre-text, context and sub-text, with elements of lifeworld that constitute primary school teacher cultures.

Lived experience is a valued site for a radicalised research journey. Poststructuralism has rejected dualism, distinctions and divisions, and yet is in danger of privileging discourse and discursive practices at the risk of marginalising the actors and lived experience. Alternatively the oftentimes-overpoliticised concept of research performed in the name of 'critical theory' is also recognised as a sub-text fraught with dangers of losing the individual actor in everyday life. Yet both 'traditions' are critical if the intent is to explore meanings of and through ideology, power and critique in view of a freer world. Young defines critical as the "making of 'relatively' unfettered validity judgements through judgements of the truth, rightness and sincerity of other people's actions and through being able to act truthfully, rightly and sincerely oneself. Alternatively it can also refer to the identification of obstacles to this." The challenge is to 'define' truthfulness, rightness and sincerity through critique without dislocating them from the everyday lives of actors. The challenge also lies yet again in defining these notions without reifying the duality of what they are or what they are not. A transcendent critique is a collective and uncoerced process that would have us go 'outside' the system to carefully specify standards and validity 'measures' of these notions. As Wittgenstein suggests if there is no distinction between "seems right" and "is right", then that means that here we cannot talk about "right" and if we cannot distinguish between what a teacher perceives to be correct and what is actually correct, then we will need a criterion of 'correctness' outside of her perception. Marx, like Hegel challenged this assumption through his dialectical approach contending that critical ideas do not have to be bought from outside by a 'free' critical consciousness for they are already contained immanently within existing conditions. Immanent critique would thus explore these notions in terms of what they promise. In this paper discourses of teacher thinking have promised a great deal with existing definitions promising 'generalisability', 'context dislocation' and 'freedom'.

Nevertheless this paper is again not naïve of the tension of the possibility of a universal 'normal' mode of discourse and the desirability to institute one. Taber in identifying the philosophical adoption of hermeneutics by Dewey, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Sellars and Quine argues that whilst Rorty calls them edifying philosophers that this is inappropriate because they do maintain an "absolute truth" in the form of a "real encounter" Bridging the gap between the strange and the familiar is however and ongoing concern for everyday life, and in this case the everyday lives of teachers. As these teachers seek to understand the world, themselves and those that also act within it I also seek to understand them. Gadamer notes the temporal distance that separates the knower from the object to be known as problematic and he contends that understanding is a self-transposition or imaginative projection as the knower seeks to become contemporaneous with it. Thus the task of understanding searches for the original life-world in the hope to uncover and recover it. As Doll suggests we are "rooted in dialogue and history" but all participating share a common purpose in seeking to understand, to venture into lifeworlds and search out the worldview of the 'other'

But every chosen exploration will be shackled with givens that surround language and signification, binary oppositions, and writing and textual strategies that are born of historical legacy. These not only saturate the pre-text of the research process but also the sub-text.

The "sub-text' as described by Usher and Edwards is that which is 'beneath' the text including professional paradigms and discourses, and power-knowledge formations. Whilst it is difficult to delineate how all that has been mentioned thus far is not itself sub-text, this framework is helpful in considering the research traditions that also lie beneath the text of the problem and methods of this research journey. Of immense relevance here is the culture and interpretive traditions that have gone before, particularly the work of Popper, Geertz, Dilthey, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Rorty, Wittgenstein, Dewey, Glaser and Strauss, Habermas and Foucault. Let us direct attention back to the traditions that accompany our text and so often direct our attention away from the 'writerliness' of the text, its constitutive effects and the textuality that 'becomes invisible'. In considering that which goes beneath this research, the historical moments that have influenced the problem and methodology reflect the journey of many who have also grappled with the 'critical' emphasis in research traditions.

The participants, including the author met during the research period on many occasions over a three-year period both socially and for the intent purpose of interview and observation. We were all trained as Primary School teachers in NSW Australia Catherine (35 years of age; taught 14 years; married), John (35 years of age; taught 13 years; married), Simon (33 years of age; taught 11years; single) Kath (30 years of age; taught 6 years; married), Marjorie (36 years of age; taught 1 year; married), and Melissa (24 years of age; taught 2 years; single). All of the participants are from anglo-saxon, working-class backgrounds except for Melissa who was from middle to upper class background. All teach in State publicly funded schools with Melissa again the exception employed by a private religious school.

The interviews with each of the participants were informal and unstructured and took place in the home of each teacher, as if 'having coffee'. Only the other and myself were present at these interviews (other than a tape recorder). The observation ventured into their homes and classrooms and was also informal. The five women (of which I am one) and two men continued on as friends engaged in a journey of discovery for four years. When we began this research journey we ranged in age from twenty four to thirty six and during the four years of the study celebrated many birthdays, including Marjorie's fortieth, and many weddings including Melissa's, Catherine's, Simon's and John's. We also celebrated the births of my second daughter and a daughter to Melissa. The everyday lives of teachers are located, constructed and discursively acted within the social realm.

This location and construction of teacher thinking within the everyday lives of the six teachers is reflected in the mirrored fragments that catch glimpses of the discursive action narrated by those participating in the dual. They are, however, not only face-to-face with each other and the self but also the discourses that emphasise the 'fight to the death'.

Their narration told of five key themes that were perceived as grand narratives that saturated the dialogical process in which they participated. These themes circulated in their dialogue as theory versus action; object versus subject; structure versus agency; self versus other; acceptance of givens versus critique of all. As exemplars of how these dualities saturated our discussions I will examine the theory/practice, self/other, and givens/critique oppositions.

John also divided theory and practice as 'located' with particular educational groups. Theory emerged for John form Syllabus documents that were 'given' by the Curriculum Board of Studies and thus 'theory' is given. Alternatively he describes practice as something that teachers 'do'.

And yet whilst Catherine could see the theoretical basis of teaching her language still mirrors the binary opposition of theory and practice

Whilst Merleau-Ponty argues that we can overcome the duality of self and other "because an anonymous visibility inhabits both of us, a vision in general." In extending his concepts of rationality and vision this exploration explored the potential and impossibility of unrestricted dialogue. The participants clearly delineated 'self' and 'other', particularly where the other is their 'teacher persona'. Melissa discussed the danger of her 'life as a teacher' dominating her self.

Catherine however narrated a great deal about how she could not delineate her role as person from teacher.

John examines the portrait of himself as he delineates his 'job' and his 'life'.

Whilst this duality is not surprising in the narrated stories it continues to question discourses that 'force' divisions upon the dialogic moments of the everyday. It is to recognise the vectors of power that crosscut the construction of self. Of interest here is the focus on the expressed self as teacher rather than on the self-as producer". It appeared in the stories that self and context were often dislocated and that discursive practices and power relations remained as 'givens'. And yet it is the hope that critique will provide space for the recognition and privileging of the contexts surrounding the self.

If as Dewey describes we need to define critique in respect to action and change we would hope that the teachers would describe many such actions. And yet Catherine in particular narrated a 'loss of the will' to critique.

Melissa described her strategy for dealing with 'givens' as a convincing of self as different to critique.

Alternatively Marjorie narrates a picture of tension as the given duels critique in her everyday life.

For all of the participants the one key 'given' that was beyond critique is that their practice had to be clearly "for the best interest of the students in their class". As stated by Marjorie " a common thread is that all we do must be for the sake of the children".

In considering the reasons for a journey into the 'fog' of teacher thinking is to explore the basic tenets of the fog itself. It can be experienced and described but is difficult if not impossible to grasp. In preparation for the continued journey we do however consider a number of basic tenets that will help us feel a little more at home in the fog, to help as much as possible, by giving a beginning point for our adventure. The fog we will continually explore and allow to envelop teacher thinking will have its origins in the everyday experience of teachers as theory and practice merge privileging concepts such as ideology, critique, vision, epistemology, imagination and resistance within a social, cultural, political and historical context.

The debate over critical thinking intensifies as 'followers' of modernism and postmodernism consider the challenges research can bring to defining, or at most, describing and deconstructing teacher thinking. Unlike Wofgang Brezinka however this challenge need not conclude with the continued critical realisation that our own convictions have a destructive effect upon them and as such it is a matter of accepting and acknowledging our beliefs. Brezinka argues the need for a unified theory of educational science, dependent on philosophical studies, including epistemology and the philosophy of science, wielding as tools enlightenment, rationality, and critical reflection. Still others argue the dangers of such unified theories as discourses that marginalise and exclude the power relations inherent in such a construction of science. A construction that assumes neutrality is refuted as naive of social, cultural and historical context, ignorant of the illusive possibility of an objective claim to truth. Grand narratives and purely technical ways of knowing are contested and teacher thinking discourses are tossed upon the disciplinary waters in strong gales that emphasise the tenuous nature of theories espousing truth for all in the guise of positivism and technical rationality.

Postmodernism brings with it the fear of the end of ideology and modernism spawned ideology as the taken for granted in the form of grand narratives. Our way forward is to unite critical theory with postmodernism as we conceive of critical in radically different ways. Current understandings of critical thinking as a tool of empowerment or deconstruction is not reflected in the stories of Simon, Kath, Marjorie, John, Melissa and Catherine. To unlock the constraints of discourses bound by dualities and binary oppositions we must not allow ideology to slink yet again underground into the caverns of the taken-for-granted. Whilst power relations and the construction and location of discursive practices are worthy considerations it is the bringing together of ideology critique and power/knowledge deconstruction that will challenge the dualities that saturate the everyday lives of teachers. It is to make many of the rules of engagement as explicit as possible.

Thus the apparent 'freedom of dialog' is yet again anything but free. It is influenced, constrained and released by discourses and discursive practices at work within an ideological and historical context not only in and around the everyday lives of the participating teachers but within and around the everyday life of myself. This journey begun will be travelled by many. It is the conversation of the narrator and the six participating teachers as they duel with the sub-text, pre-text and con-text of the research endeavour. It is to have begun the dialogue of teacher thinking as Dilthey, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Rorty, Wittgenstein, Dewey, Habermas, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty and Foucault meet in various moments with the everyday lives of Simon, Kath, Marjorie, John, Melissa and Catherine.