The article is principally written for adult educators. It models an auto-ethnographic approach situating this within a critical pedagogic orientation. As an adult educator working in the Republic of Ireland, I draw from two instances in my own life that helped me to re-think my racialised identity. By reflecting on discomforts in terms of my own…

Located in a larger study that attempted to challenge taken-for-granted or homogenizing assumptions about constructions of adolescent identity and to interrogate radically the process of qualitative research in this field [O'Grady, G. (2012). "Constructing Identities with Young People using Creative Rhizomatic Narrative." PhD Thesis.…

Set against a particular policy context in the Republic of Ireland, this study explores the stories of seven pre-service teachers' experiences of being mentored during their final School Placement practicum. Their stories were prompted by videos of their School Placement practice and collected using narrative interview methods. Findings suggest…

Reflecting on my experience as a teacher and a lesbian in a second-level school in Ireland in the early 1990s, I use an auto-ethnographic approach first to explore some of the ways dominant narratives can silence, constrain and marginalise some people. Projecting forward to an imagined future, I draw on creative writing to "re-frame" how…

The merits of action learning as a change tool and enabler of deep learning are well recognised. However, there is a gap in the literature of participants' stories regarding their experiences on accredited postgraduate executive programmes underpinned by an action learning philosophy. The following account of practice addresses this gap and…

Reflexivity is a professional requirement of the Adult Guidance Counsellor, with reflexive practice paramount to our work. From 2008 to 2010 I trained as an Adult Guidance Counsellor while working with an unemployed adult client group. During this time, I also journeyed through my first pregnancy. Towards the end of my training, I experienced a…

This article examines student teachers' experiences of writing emotionally through the lens of teacher-writer memoirs. The participants were 99 postgraduate student teachers on a sociology of teaching module in an initial primary teacher education programme in the Republic of Ireland. Analysis of journal responses indicated how student teachers…

Free-written descriptions of self and others were obtained from 190 adolescent boys and girls. Descriptions became longer, more "psychological," and more organized over adolescence. Modes of constructing persons were positively correlated across different stimulus persons. Self-descriptions tended to be more person-centered than…