Recent writing on education and social change, and a growing number of new governmental initiatives across Western societies have proceeded in denial or ignorance of the personal missions and biographical trajectories of key personnel. This book stems from an underpinning belief that we have to understand the personal biographical if we are to understand the fate of social and political initiatives.

Introduction Part 1 Curriculum Change Processes and Historical Periods. The Context of Cultural Inventions: Learning and Curriculum. Times of Educational Change: Towards an Understanding of Patterns of Historical and Cultural Refraction. Curriculum as Narration: Tales from the Children of the Colonised with Ruth Deakin Crick Part 2 The Rise of the Life Narrative. Exploring the Teachers Professional Knowledge: Constructing Identity and Community with Ardra L. Cole. Listening to Professional Life Stories: Some Cross Professional Perspectives Part 3 All the Lonely People: The Struggle for Private Meaning and Public Purpose in Education. The Educational Researcher as Public Intellectual. Knowledge, Personal Narrative and the Social Future.

Ivor F. Goodson is Professor of Learning Theory at the University of Brighton, UK and International Research Professor at the University of Tallinn, Estonia. His most recent books are Narrative Learning (2010), Narrative Pedagogy (2011) and Developing Narrative Theory (2013). For more information please visit: www.ivorgoodson.com.