Through the voice of six South African in-service teachers, this study is a contribution to understanding the meaning-making processes of teachers in-service registered for what often is the first undergraduate degree qualification. The study deliberately focused on in-service teachers in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, a province that often lags behind in learner performance and sustained teacher professional development. In this respect, the participants represent a sample of in-service teachers from previously disadvantaged backgrounds in the country pursuing a Bachelor of Education, and who practice in often difficult and rural conditions. Narrative inquiry research involves the act of meaning making through which individuals reflect on and arrive at meaning from their experiences, influenced and informed by their cultural expectations.

This research was made up of a process of storytelling by the participants, to reach a state of understanding. The goals of the study were to make visible the influences of South Africa’s past and consequently of the in-service teachers on their meaning-making. Further, the study sought to make visible to practice and policy makers, as well as teacher educators — the intersectional, fluid, and constantly negotiated meaning-making experiences of in-service teachers, both in the academic and professional environments. Furthermore, through this study I sought to present an alternative view to the often deficit narrative presented of in-service teachers’ attitudes towards learning. Lastly, the study proposes narrative methodology as a useful methodology for studying the meaning-making experiences of in-services teachers in particular, especially in African communities.

The stories of the teachers are analysed dialectically, drawing from Sociocultural, and intersectionality theories as a heuristic tool; identifying the interaction of variables within and across the sociocultural contexts of the teachers and their activity systems.

Meaning-making, including higher mental functioning, has its origins in social sources and processes. As in-service teachers participate in a broad range of joint learning activities and internalize the effects, knowledge, and skills — they acquire new strategies for teaching, as well as knowledge of the world and culture of the environment they are teaching in. The study consisted of two phases;

1. The first phase sought to identify and describe the sociocultural influences of meaning-making for in-service teachers, and the variables that make up the learning contexts of the participants in context. This phase foregrounded describing the interaction of the identified variables and factors that influence the process of meaning-making in the participants’ sociocultural contexts.
2. In the second phase, the interaction of the variables identified in Phase 1 in the narratives were further analysed using Sociocultural Theory; developing insight and understanding of the learning experiences of Education Studies in the Bachelor of Education curriculum for in-service teachers.

A narrative methodology was employed for the collection and analysis of data generated using open-ended interviews and a visual stimulus method. 

Narrative Methodology was used Instruments included story telling, open-ended interviews, and a visual stimuli method

The study argues that, for in-service teachers, contextual interactions are as essential to their meaning-making as the physical and ‘ideational’ (Nasir, Lee, Pea, and McKinney de Roy, 2020) artefacts that are used in such interactions to facilitate meaning making in their academic and professional contexts. Further, I propose that the sociocultural context of each in-service teacher affects their learning experiences of Educational Studies in the Bachelor of Education degree programme, depending on the interaction of the variables in the individual’s sociocultural context. As a starting point, any attempt to understand learning for South African teachers that ignores the unwritten assumptions and effects of historical and present educational contexts, or that does not locate teacher learning within the broader economic and political contexts and change – runs the risk of irrelevance. Ignoring the inevitable influences of context in the learning of in-service teachers has the possibility of derailing research from more just and equitable education and learning Kallaway (2017). Proposing that learning is inescapably contextual and cultural for in-service teachers - the research calls for interrogation and rethinking on how we study learning for these teachers. Lastly, the research seeks to contribute towards the formation of scalable and systemic research in the sector. Further, this research is a call to institutions of higher education to interrogate and redesign where necessary traditional structures and ways of operating - to find more productive means to work together in the work of preparing in-service teachers capable of serving and helping the majority of global and South African children, regardless of contextual differences.

Bertram, C., & Christiansen, I. (2014). What does research say about teacher learning and teacher knowledge?: Implications for professional development in South Africa. Journal of Education, 3 – 20. Bruner, J. 1991. The Narrative Construction of Reality. Critical Inquiry. 1-21. Burman, C., Aphane, M., & Mollel, N. (2016). Knowledge as Enablement: Additional Perspectives Influenced by Complexity. Educational Research for Social Change (ERSC), 1-17. Cole, M., & Scribner, S. (1978). Introduction. In L. S. Vygotsky (Ed.), Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (pp. 1–14). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Etherington, K. (2021, January 30). Narrative approaches to case studies. University of Bristol, UK. Eyler, J. (2002). Reflection: Linking Service and Learning —Linking Students and Communities. Journal of Social Issues, 517-534. Butina, M. (2015). A Narrative Approach to Qualitative Inquiry. Clinical Laboratory Science, 190-196.