This collection examines the many influences of biographical inquiry in education and discusses methodological issues from the perspective of veteran and novice biographers. Contributors underscore the documentary, interpretive, and literary concerns of biographical and archival work, and their essays reveal the complexity, distinctiveness, and sense of exploration of scholarly endeavors.

Chapter 1 Introduction; Part 1 Qualitative Research and Educational Biography; Chapter 2 Introduction; Chapter 3 Musings on Life Writing: Biography and Case Studies in Teacher Education, Robert V.BulloughJr.; Chapter 4 Ethnography with a Biographic Eye, Corrine E. Glesne; Chapter 5 Revealing Human Agency: The Uses of Biography in the Study of Educational History, Barbara Finkelstein; Chapter 6 Construction Scars: Autobiographical Voice in Biography, William F. Pinar, Anne E. Pautz; Part 2 Methodological Issues and Biographical Research; Chapter 7 Introduction; Chapter 8 The Issue of Subject: A Critical Connection, Blanche Wiesen Cook; Chapter 9 The Issue of Gender: Continuing Problems in Biography, Linda C. Wagner-Martin; Chapter 10 Black Subject, White Biographer, Wayne J. Urban; Chapter 11 Trust and Memory: Explorations in Oral History and Biography, Alan Wieder; Part 3 Archival Research and Educational Biography; Chapter 12 Introduction; Chapter 13 Unique Resources: Research in Archival Collections, Herbert J. Hartsook; Chapter 14 Fair Use Issues in Archival and Biographical Research, Philo Hutcheson; Chapter 15 The Historical Recovery of Edyth Astrid Ferris, Geraldine Joncich Clifford; Chapter 16 On Becoming an Archivist and Biographer, Louis M. Smith; Part 4 Educational Biography as Dissertation Research; Chapter 17 Introduction; Chapter 18 Finding Facts, Telling Truths, Achieving Art, Katherine C. Reynolds; Chapter 19 Willing Biographer, Unwilling Subject, Tony Reid; Chapter 20 The Biographer's Relationship with Her Subject, Lynda Anderson Smith; Chapter 21 A Search for Prose That Recreates the Past, Thomas B. Horton; Chapter 22 Is It Fiction or Biography?, Edwin C. Epps; Part 5 Implications for the Field of Education; Chapter 23 Introduction; Chapter 24 Biography, Education and Questions of the Private Voice, Janet L. Miller; Chapter 25 I Search, You Search, We All Search: Biography and the Public Voice, William Ayers; Chapter 26 Asking Questions About Telling Stories, D. Jean Clandinin, F. Michael Connelly; Chapter 27 Inquiry, Data and Understanding: A Search for Meaning in Educational Research, Lorin W. Anderson;