The Journal of Educational Research, 103:72–80, 2010
Copyright !
C Heldref Publications
ISSN: 0022-0671 print / 1940-0675 online
DOI:10.1080/00220670903323354
Narrative as Inquiry
PETRA MUNRO HENDRY
Louisiana State University
ABSTRACT. The author suggests that all research is narra-
tive. Resituating all research as narrative, as opposed to char-
acterizing narrative as one particular form of inquiry, pro-
vides a critical space for rethinking research beyond current
dualisms and bifurcations that create boundaries that limit
the capacity for dialogue across diverse epistemologies. The
contemporary bifurcation of research as either quantitative
or qualitative, or as scientific or nonscientific, has resulted
in a master narrative of research which assumes incommen-
surability across paradigms. The author weaves 3 questions
through this research: (a) What is lost when narrative and sci-
ence are constructed as opposing and incommensurable modes
of inquiry? (b) How might scholars reconceptualize inquiry
outside a binary framework that privileges science? and (c) In
what ways can resituating all narrative as inquiry open spaces
for dialogue across multiple epistemologies that is the heart of
democratic inquiry? The author concludes by suggesting that
narrative is not a method, but rather a process of meaning
making that encompasses 3 major spheres of inquiry: the sci-
entific (physical), the symbolic (human experience) and the
sacred (metaphysical).
Keywords: democratic research, interpretation, narrative
I
t could be argued that narrative research is the first
and oldest form of inquiry. If this is the case, then all
research traditions originate from narrative. Narrative
means “to account” and is derived from the term gno, mean-
ing to know. The oral storytelling traditions of earliest man
were narrative inquiries that sought to address questions of
meaning and knowing. From the beginning, narrative em-
bodied multiple ways of knowing. For the Greeks, there were
both episteme, knowledge of the practical or everyday (also
termed logical–rational thought), and gnosis or poesis (also
termed mytho-poetic), knowledge related to the larger ques-
tions of meaning. Both modes were accounts of knowledge;
they were narratives that were seen not as oppositional but
rather as complementary (Davis, 2004). The epistemologi-
cal roots of the scientific and humanistic traditions can be
traced to narrative when narrative is understood as the pri-
mary way in which humans make meaning (Bakhtin, 1981;
Barthes, 1966/1974; Bruner, 1986; Ricoeur, 1981).1 If in-
quiry (research) is understood as meaning making, then all
inquiry is narrative. Resituating all inquiry as narrative, as
opposed to characterizing narrative as one particular form
of inquiry, provides a critical space for rethinking research
beyond current dualisms and bifurcations. The current ty-
pology of research in which science (positivist) and narra-
tive (interpretavist) are understood as two incommensurate
modes of inquiry in the Kuhnian sense functions to cre-
ate boundaries that limit the capacity for dialogue. These
barriers impede the very possibility of interactions between
multiple and diverse epistemologies that are the heart of
generating questions critical to inquiry.
Current binary characterizations of narrative inquiry as
distinct from scientific inquiry function as a master narra-
tive of research. Three interrelated discourses are central to
this totalizing research discourse that has come to function
as a truth effect: that (a) science and narrative are dis-
tinct research genres, (b) narrative research is postscience
or postpositivist and bears little or no relation to science,
and (c) science is the only legitimate source of real knowl-
edge. Although the naming of research paradigms has some
variations, the dualistic, binary nature of conceptualizing
inquiry is almost taken as fact. The most common concep-
tualization is quantitative versus qualitative. Polkinghorne
(2007) suggested knowledge development has been split into
two communities: conventional researchers and reformist
researchers; Denzin and Lincoln (1994) used the terms sci-
entific and humanistic, and Lather (1991) used the terms posi-
tivist and neopositivist. Although the language variations sug-
gest slight differences in conceptual frameworks regarding
inquiry, the binary nature of this framing is consistent.2 This
binary construction implicitly assumes that narrative is a
postmodern or cutting-edge form of research that has only
recently emerged. Narrative is considered part of the recent
interpretive turn in the social sciences (Geertz, 1973; Riess-
man, 1993). It is considered “post,” or part of a research
paradigm shift as if it were after science and after positivism.
The ongoing bifurcation of inquiry (which assumes in-
commensurability) is in distinct opposition to calls that
suggest all scholars need to acquire a deeper understand-
ing of epistemological diversity and complexity as a way to
strengthen research, particularly science (Serres & Latour,
1995; Vest, 2005; Young, 2001). The calls for deeper under-
standing of epistemological diversity are premised on sev-
eral factors: (a) the perception of increasing conformity and
methodological zealotry (Feuer, Towne, & Shavelson, 2002)
that threatens to narrow definitions of research, (b) the case
Address correspondence to Petra Munro Hendry, Department of
Educational Theory, Policy, and Practice, Louisiana State Univer-
sity, 204A Peabody Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-7101. (E-mail:
phendry@lsu.edu)
The Journal of Educational Research
that scholars who work within different theoretical frame-
works and paradigms find others unintelligible (St. Pierre,
2000), and (c) that increased understanding is necessary to
solve the social problems that confront scholars. Epistemo-
logical diversity requires a rethinking of the boundaries and
barriers that permeate the master narrative of research and
function to limit the dialogue and conversation across dis-
course communities that are critical to democratic inquiry.
If, as scholars, we cannot talk across difference as a means
for increasing our understanding of critical social issues and
problems, then our research, I would argue, is of little use.
Consequently, I have woven the following three major ques-
tions throughout this paper:
1. What is lost when narrative and science are constructed
as opposing and incommensurable modes of inquiry?
2. How might we reconceptualize inquiry outside a binary
framework that privileges science?
3. In what ways can resituating narrative as inquiry open
spaces for dialogue across multiple epistemologies that is
the heart of democratic inquiry?
Definitions of Narrative: Subverting Canonical Truths
Learn everything, certainly, but only in order to know noth-
ing. Doubt in order to create.
—Serres, 1991/1997 (p. 98).
At the heart of inquiry is the asking of questions. Inquiry
begins with doubt. As a mode of inquiry narrative “tells us
about something unexpected” (Bruner, 1996, p. 121). Narra-
tive explicates the imbalance that is prompted by a question,
lived experience, or puzzling phenomenon. Our response to
question and doubt, in other words the ways in which we
organize and make meaning, is narrative. Simply put, as
Bruner reminded us, narrative is a structure (or structures,
as I suggest) for organizing our knowledge and experience.
Understood this way, I suggest that all inquiry is narrative.
Given this premise, narrative functions as an overarching
epistemology that cannot be reduced to a method. This is
a departure from the traditional ways in which narrative is
used. Narrative is generally understood as a method separate
and distinct from other methods. Although narrative is often
used synonymously with story (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999;
Witherell & Noddings, 1991) and thus is understood as ex-
clusively interpretative or qualitative, I would like to suggest
that narrative is not just a method of analyzing story but the
primary process of all inquiry. Narrative as inquiry is not a
method, but rather a process of meaning making that en-
compasses what I suggest are three major spheres of inquiry:
the scientific (physical), the symbolic (human experience),
and the sacred (metaphysical).3
In this, I diverge from Bruner (1996) and others
(Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Polkinghorne, 1988; Riess-
man, 2008) who maintained that narrative is a distinct form
of inquiry separate from scientific inquiry. Despite their
differences they share a fundamental feature that makes
73
both narrative—the asking of questions, in other words
doubt. The various types of questions scholars ask require
different modes of inquiry (research methods) as well as
unique responses (ways of organizing findings). However,
all inquiry shares the process of asking questions, deter-
mining how best to respond to the question, engaging in
exploration and generating more questions. Repositioning
narrative as inquiry shifts narrative from being a method
to an epistemology of doubt. It is always the question that
determines the form of inquiry. Questions, not method, are
the heart of research. As Bruner (1996) suggested,
The art of raising challenging questions is easily as important
as the art of giving clear answers. The art of cultivating such
questions, of keeping good questions alive, is as important
as either of those. Good questions are ones that pose dilem-
mas, subvert obvious or canonical “truths,” force incongruities
upon our attention. (p. 127)
Narrative as inquiry is grounded in the doubt that is essential
to creating and re-creating.
Cultivating and generating questions requires exchanges
across the boundaries that now separate scholars when re-
search is constructed as dichotomous, either or or, qualita-
tive or quantitative, scientific or humanistic, or positivist or
interpretive. These distinctions contribute to producing a
truth effect that science is real knowledge and that narrative
is mere interpretation and thus not real. Like Janet Miller
(2005), I am disturbed by the ways in which narrative is often
“dismissed as ‘soft,’ ‘idiosyncratic,’ ‘undertheorized,’ ‘individ-
ualistic,’ even ‘narcissistic’” (p. 89). Scientific inquiry, on the
other hand, is characterized as hard, rational, and universal.
To assume that scientific rationalism is preferable or supe-
rior to alternative traditions of inquiry is methodological
tyranny. As Paul Feyerabend (1978), the noted philosopher
of science, suggested,
What’s so great about science? What makes science preferable
to other forms of existence, using different standards and get-
ting different results as a consequence? What makes modern
science preferable to the science of Aristotelians, or to the
cosmology of the Hopi? (p. 73)
Feyerabend maintained that the dominant belief in the in-
herent superiority of science has moved beyond science to
become for many an “article of faith” (p. 74). His critique
is not against science as a mode of inquiry but the danger
of elevating science as the only legitimate form of research.
Science is no longer a particular institution; “it is now part
of the basic fabric of democracy just as the Church was once
part of the basic fabric of society. Of course, Church and
State are now carefully separated. State and science, how-
ever, work closely together” (Feyerabend, p. 74). The power
of science and the way in which science as a cosmology is
accepted uncritically as the only source of truth is for Fey-
erabend a threat to democracy. Three assumptions about
science that operate as a truth effect are that it (a) is prefer-
able to alternative traditions, (b) cannot be improved on
by comparison or combination with alternative traditions,
74
and 3) must be accepted and made a basis of society and
education because of its advantages (Feyerabend, p. 78).
Feyerabend’s (1978) warnings of the absolutism of science
were echoed by educational researchers (Barone, 2007; St.
Pierre, 2002) in light of federal legislation (the No Child
Left Behind Act) which “exalts scientific evidence as the
key driver in education policy and practice, but . . . also
inches dangerously toward a prescription of methods and a
rigid definition of research quality” (Feuer et al., 2002, p. 4).
In this case, the state has defined what counts as legitimate
methodology by defining what constitutes scientifically valid
quantitative and qualitative research. The state has not only
determined what counts as scientific research but also tied
public funding of research to specific modes of inquiry (Feuer
et al.).4 This state control of science is what Feyerabend cau-
tioned as a threat to democracy as well as to science. Science
has never been defined by absolute definitions of method or
standardization of theory, which would be antithetical to the
very heart of science and scientific innovation. Science, as
Feuer et al. maintained, is a culture and community that is
shaped “through a complex combination of professional crit-
icism and self-correction” (p. 6). Democratic process through
dialogue and debate is critical to science. Repositioning sci-
ence as one type of narrative provides a potential rupture
in current constructions of science as absolute and the only
legitimate mode of inquiry.
Ironically, the current methodological orthodoxy that
privileges science as the gold standard of research, in which
science is the sole source of reliable knowledge, is dia-
metrically opposed to real science and democratic inquiry
(Barone, 2007). This threat to science and inquiry requires
not only a critique of science as a method of inquiry, but also
an interrogation of what has made possible the privileging
of science over other modes of inquiry.5 A full discussion of
this topic would require a whole other paper. However, a pri-
mary argument made for privileging science maintains that
this reductionism functions to promote a vision of change
(or reform) in education as simply due to better or more sci-
entific methods. Elevating science (reason or rationality) as
the only source of knowledge in effect denies the legitimacy
of other modes of inquiry that analyze the political, social,
FIGURE 1. Narrative as three modes of inquiry.
The Journal of Educational Research
and cultural as sites of knowledge with equal explanatory
power to science (Aronowitz, 1988). It can be argued that
elevating empirical research practices distracts educational
researchers from the serious economic inequalities and “pro-
tects the instrumental class-based interests of global capi-
talism by disregarding social structure as a legitimate and
primary unit of analysis” (Hyslop-Margison & Dale, 2005, p.
34). Privileging science reinforces a social-engineering ap-
proach to education (Erickson & Gutierrez, 2002) that is
based in control. While science might provide explanations
for certain aspects of the human experience, it is incapable
of capturing the complexity of the whole human experience.
Ironically, inquiry emerges within systems that are mul-
tiple, conflicting, and contradictory. Perhaps scholars have
forgotten that this is critical to science as a mode of inquiry.
If Einstein had thought within the conventions of the New-
tonian science of his time, he could not have articulated the
theory of relativity. The heart of inquiry is ambiguity, the ne-
cessity of being open to other traditions, to questioning. The
threat to science, to inquiry, and, ultimately, to education
is to elevate one and only one way of knowing the world.
It is here that narrative can, I believe, help scholars rethink
inquiry in ways that are more ethical and democratic by
enlarging the conversation regarding multiple research tra-
ditions. I propose that narrative as an epistemology of doubt
can address questions in regard to three major domains: the
physical (science), human experience (symbolic), and the
metaphysical (sacred). These three narratives all engage in
the asking of questions but require unique approaches to the
doubt they stimulate (see Figure 1).
These modes of narrative inquiry are not distinct and
incommensurable. In fact, quite to the contrary, they are
interconnected and interdependent. The sense of awe
and wonder that scholars often experience at the mystery
of some phenomenon or event may often lead to more
questions about the actual physical nature of an event
(Sacks, 2001) Likewise, the scientist engaged in observation
can experience the beauty and majesty of nature that may
lead to a spiritual experience and awaken a poem to describe
that which cannot be captured through science. It is the
interrelated and unique nature of these narrative modes
The Journal of Educational Research
that provides the ongoing possibility for rich relationships
and the foundation for rigorous inquiry, as well as the per-
turbations that result in the generation of more questions. I
turn now to examine in greater detail these three narratives:
the sacred, the symbolic, and the scientific.
Sacred Narratives
In each atom of the realms of the universe, there exist vast
oceans of world systems.
—Lama, 2005 (p. 1)
Is the previous quote science or spirituality? Or, perhaps
it is both. The sacred addresses those questions that are be-
yond reason. It is the realm of the unknowable. Inquiry in
this realm is not directed toward representing the world, but
rather toward understanding matters of existence and larger
questions of meaning. Narratives of the sacred are predi-
cated on epistemologies that are outside the limitations of
language and reason, and include the imaginal, poetic, spir-
itual, paradoxical, and the mythic (Hendry, in press). For
millennia humans have engaged myths, fables, prophecy,
spirituals, rituals, dance, and the arts as modes of narrative
inquiry that provide not answers, but rather seek to open
spaces in which creative interpretation or poiesis (Truiet,
2006) addresses the questions of what it means to be hu-
man. These narrative responses are forms of inquiry that
explore and examine inevitable doubt and questions hu-
man beings’ experience in an unpredictable cosmos that is
filled with mystery and awe. There is no search for defini-
tive meanings. Sacred narratives do not provide explana-
tions or even descriptions—they do not operate out of a
linear, hierarchical worldview (logical–rational), but rather
one that Mary Douglas (1999) maintains is based on cor-
relative or analogical or aesthetic epistemologies (mytho-
poetic). In some cases, sacred narratives are also a means
through which humans are held to account. Accountability
is not associated with contemporary understandings. Alter-
natively, it is to be accountable to the process of becom-
ing through which the self, other, and cosmos are continu-
ally constituted in a web of relationships. Sacred narratives
evoke the unrepresentability of knowledge, in which be-
coming cannot be framed in terms of any methodology or
ideology.
Although the sacred is often understood as part of the
metaphysical realm and thus is not scientific, this does not
mean that it is not a form of critical inquiry. Because con-
temporary science is the discourse of privilege, it is hard
to imagine that the esoteric, spiritual, or sacred dimensions
of experience might provide understandings that are just as
rich, valuable, rigorous, and meaningful as science. Michael
Dantley (2005) suggested that a critical spiritual inquiry
“has the ability to call into question immoral positions and
inhuman practices that marginalize and terrorize people in
an attempt to defrock them of their inalienable humanity”
(p. 4). Much of the present human experience (terrorism,
poverty, ongoing racism) is not and cannot be explained
75
by science’s claim to predictability and reason. There will
always remain questions that cannot be answered. Dantley
drew on Cornell West (1989) to illuminate the difference be-
tween scientific and religious (I prefer sacred) languages used
to explain, name, and define. West suggested that knowledge
claims from a scientific viewpoint attempt to provide reli-
able predictions and trustworthy explanations. On the other
hand, when an individual puts forward a knowledge claim of
a religious description, the individual is promoting insights
“in order honestly to confront and effectively to cope with
the inevitable vicissitudes and unavoidable limit situations
of life” (p. 417). These limit situations of life are an ongo-
ing part of the human experience. And, in fact, a great deal
of contemporary philosophy and science is grounded in an
antifoundationalism that assumes that all knowledge is con-
tingent, situated, and partial. The specter of relativism has
generated much debate about the possibilities and limita-
tions of endless deferral, especially in regard to the need for
truth as a prerequisite for ethics and morals as well as politics.
However, I suggest that sacred narratives (although dealing
with the ethereal) have not only the power to question that
which is unknowable but also have the power to interrogate
and critique that which is not humane or just by holding us
accountable to our humanity.
I suggest that sacred narratives require an ontology of faith.
These are narratives that do not increase our knowledge,
truth, or even give us better interpretations. Instead, they
may result in increasing our faith in humanity, in being
more present to others and in increasing our compassion.
Faith, as Dantley (2005) defined it,
is the extension of one’s belief in the existence or the na-
ture of something or someone. It is the suspension of our
confidence in linear, empirical, quantifiable data to confirm
the actuality of things. A critical faith actively interrogates
the essentialisms that are produced through hegemonic rites,
constructions and institutions. (p. 6)
Faith is not merely a metaphysical matter. When faith is
exercised, according to Dantley, “it defines and exacts the
physical reality of persons, places and circumstances for a
moment in time” (p. 7). What one believes becomes one’s
reality. The materializing of the metaphysical is, according
to Foucault (1982), the form of the ethical. As educators and
researchers, the goal of sacred narratives is to materialize the
humanity of our encounters with others.
I have talked previously about research as a faith act
(Hendry, 2007). My concern, like many others (Richard-
son, 1997; Wolcott, 2002), centers on the increasing focus
in qualitative research (specifically narrative inquiry) to be-
come more like science. Researchers in the field have focused
on developing more rigorous methodologies to validate that
they have captured experience and drawn valid meaning.
Ultimately, these methods are designed to establish and ver-
ify truth (more specifically, the truth telling of informants).
As researchers, our faith is in our methods, not in our rela-
tionships. Sacred narratives do not require analysis or inter-
pretation or verification. I argue they require that scholars
76
attend to them fully and be present. Whether it is a sculpture,
myth, painting, dance or sermon, these are narratives that ul-
timately speak to the human condition. Being present in the
encounter with no other purpose than attending to and be-
ing open is what makes it sacred and illuminates its potential
to be materialized. As Dwayne Huebner (1999) suggested,
human encounters are the essence of life. “The encounter is
not used to produce change, to enhance prestige, to identify
new knowledge, or to be symbolic of something else. The en-
counter is. In it is the essence of life. In it life is revealed and
lived” (Huebner, p. 110). Sacred narratives are those which
we have relegated to a realm outside of research. They are
not considered to be scientific, whether it is qualitative or
quantitative research. Sacred narratives are modes of critical
inquiry that have the potential to provide the faith and com-
passion that humans need to grapple with the unknown. By
acknowledging an epistemology of unknowing researchers
can expand understandings of the complex ways in which
humans understand truth, reality, and give it meaning. Pro-
viding spaces for this epistemological diversity is critical to a
democratic society and is the heart of inquiry that narrative
can provide.
Symbolic Narratives
If the word “text” is understood in the broadest sense-as any
coherent complex of signs-then even the study of art . . .
deals with texts. Thoughts about thoughts, experiences of
experiences, words about words, texts about texts.
—Bakhtin, 1986 (as quoted in Riessman, 2008, x)
Symbolic narratives are those that seek to respond to ques-
tions of human experience. From the beginning of time,
humans have sought to make meaning of their experience
primarily through signs and symbols (Riessman, 2008). Sym-
bols that seek to re-present human experience are encoded as
language (letters), mathematics (numbers), music (notes),
space (architecture), and art (form). Symbols do not re-
present lived experience, but rather they interpret experi-
ence. In other words, there is no correspondence between
reality and the symbol. As Bruner (1996) stated,
The events recounted in a story take their meaning from
the story as a whole. But the story as a whole is something
that is constructed from its parts. This part/whole tail-chasing
bears the formidable name “hermeneutic circle” and it is what
causes stories to be subject to interpretation, not to explana-
tion. Scientific theories or logical proofs are judged based on
verifiability or testability; whereas, stories are based on their
verisimilitude or “lifelikeness.” (p. 122)
A story can be true to life without being true of life.
The range of symbol systems that humans engage to in-
terpret and the modes of interpretation is vastly diverse.
Their history is rich and deep (and much beyond the scope
of this article). Unlike sacred narratives, which do not re-
quire interpretation (how can an individual interpret the un-
known), what distinguishes symbolic narratives is their focus
on understanding human experience. Historically, symbolic
The Journal of Educational Research
narratives were not meant to interpret for the purposes of
revealing a truth about human experience, but rather they
were intended to illuminate the whole process of becom-
ing. Hermeneutics, rhetoric, philosophy, mathematics, po-
etry, tragedies, epics, and music were modes of inquiry that
sought to understand wisdom (not facts). As Doll (1993)
maintained in regard to the Greeks, “here reason is broader
than the solving of problems or achieving of right answers;
it is making good judgments. Factual knowledge, needed
for good judgments, is considered only remembrance” (p.
111). This is why poetry and myth were seen as essential
to wisdom. Although practical knowledge (episteme) was
critical to everyday life, wisdom also necessitated mean-
ing making or interpretation in order to discern and make
judgments.
I suggest that the heart of interpretation is the creation of
symbol systems. These are the spaces in which humans have
attempted to re-present their understanding of lived experi-
ences and to make meaning. Making meaning required not
knowledge, but rather wisdom. Wisdom (what scholars now
call knowledge) for the early Greeks resulted from harmony
and balance among the body, mind, and soul. Two centuries
before Plato, Pythagoras articulated his view of the cosmos or
universe as orderly and harmonious, in that everything bears
a particular mathematical relationship to everything else.6
The mainstay of Pythagorean philosophy was harmonia, the
body of inflexible cosmic rules that informed sculpture, ar-
chitecture, poetry, music, rhetoric, religion, morality, and
human life. Only when things are in proper relationship to
each other is there harmony and order. Wisdom required
not only reason (the practical) but creation (gnosis or poesis)
as well as eros (love) or passionate desire (Garrison, 1997).
For Plato, the emphasis on the mind over the body elevated
reason, or nous, as the primary source of good judgment. This
privileging of reason was ultimately taken up again in the
Cartesian revolution. However, for the Greeks, the notion
of balance, which embraced multiple epistemologies, was
the basic principle of wisdom. The balancing of episteme,
gnosis, and eros required interpretation and this is the heart
of symbolic narratives.
As a mode of inquiry, symbolic narratives maintain that
there are in fact multiple ways of coming to know; conse-
quently no one method is sufficient.7 The current privileging
of the sciences (the practical or physical) has created an im-
balance. Science, as the supposed pinnacle of reason, assumes
it can make it on its own; humans no longer needs gnosis,
human interpretation (subjectivity), or love (passion) as part
of their pursuit of knowledge. Michel Serres (1995) warned
that the severing of the sciences from the humanities has re-
sulted in science being positioned as transcendent, as having
no responsibilities or obligations except to itself. In essence,
science has become the new religion. For Serres, this im-
balance requires that he call on his hero le Tiers-Instruit, or
Instructed Third, or the troubadour of knowledge to mediate
between the sciences and the humanities. The troubadour
is, according to Serres, the
The Journal of Educational Research
hybrid, or mestizo offspring of two cultures, for if the scientist
is still young and the humanist is several thousand years old,
then the troubadour of knowledge, who is of both science and
letters, has some chance of instituting the age of adulthood
for which we hope. (p. 183)
The troubadour is a rationalist, but does not believe that
all the requirements of reason are met by science. The
troubadour tempers one with the other. Serres suggested
that the troubadour
never sees the social sciences as exhausting the content trans-
mitted by the humanities-far from it. So, for him there is as
much rigor in a myth or a work of literature as in a theorem
or an experiment and, inversely, as much myth in these as in
literature. (p. 183)
Traversing across disciplines and fields of inquiry is criti-
cal not only to harmony but also to keeping questions alive.
When all inquiry is reconceptualized as narrative, multiple
spaces are created that can provide paths and bridges be-
tween these paradigms that are understood as distinct.
I have previously discussed my fear that the realm of the
symbolic (or what has traditionally been termed narrative) is
striving to become more like science (Hendry, 2007; Munro,
1995, 1998). From a positivist worldview, experience must
be stripped of value and be objective in nature in order to
count as knowledge. I understand objectivity as a narrative
ontology that strives to attempt to see for the first time again
or to bracket presuppositions. This ontology of objectivity
is certainly appropriate in response to certain kinds of ques-
tions. However, it is problematic when understood as the
blueprint for all inquiry. However, due the hegemony of
science as the only source of truth, narrative has increas-
ingly tried to become more like science. The proliferation
of methods to systematically evaluate symbol systems in or-
der to deduce their reliability, validity, and generalizability
are so prolific they are beyond the scope of this article. To
impose the methods of science, in other words, explanation,
on the human experience is misguided because it fails to
account for human agency. As Gould (1996) maintained,
the complexity of human behavior is impossible to capture.
The symbolic seeks to interpret and not to explain; this does
require distinct methodologies.
And, whereas science seeks to ask questions about the
material world and explain natural phenomenon, the scien-
tist is human and must rely on language (metaphors, stories,
symbols) to make sense. While the focus of scientific inquiry
is considered to be distinct from other types of narrative,
it is dependent to some degree on metaphor and story for
its explanations. Not only is it almost impossible to separate
science from the sacred or the symbolic, it is also undesirable.
The myth of science is that it is predicated on reason. Yet, if
we look to the stories of scientists like Barbara McClintock,
Albert Einstein, or Oliver Sacks we find that intuition, imag-
ination, revelation, metaphors, music, and dance all play a
role in science narratives. To assume that the hallmark of
science is rationality is ironically to underscore the symbolic
nature of this narrative.
77
Science Narratives
There is almost no area of human life today that is not touched
by the effects of science and technology. Yet are we clear about
the place of science in the totality of human life-what exactly
it should do and by what it should be governed? This last point
is critical because unless the direction of science is guided by
a consciously ethical motivation, especially compassion, its
effects may fail to bring benefit.
—Lama, 2005 (p. 9)
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
—Albert Einstein (as quoted in Isaacson, 2007, p. 7)
That science must be grounded in compassion is an idea
that seems almost contradictory from a Western perspec-
tive. Likewise, to suggest that science is to generate imag-
ination, not just knowledge, is almost heretical. Science is
to be objective, value free, and concerned primarily with
finding the truth and producing knowledge. But as Bruner
(1996) called to mind, science is not something that exists
in nature. Science is the body of knowledge about the natu-
ral world generated by methods that emphasize observation,
experimentation and explanation of real-world phenomena.
Science is a human construct and an objective knowledge.
I maintain that science, similar to narrative, in general has
been reduced to method. This reductionist view of science as
an absolute principle constitutes what Erickson and Gutier-
rez (2002) called a “substitution of scientism, an idealization
of science, for science itself” (p. 22; italics in original). The
actual practices of scientists differ substantially from ideal-
ized characterizations embodied in the dominant white-coat
image. Erickson and Gutierrez described the culture of sci-
ence as one which is far from rational and disinterested but
is steeped in passion, argument, and aesthetics. Real science,
they suggested, “is not about certainty but about uncertainty”
(Erickson & Gutierrez, p. 22).
Paul Feyerabend (1975) also disrupted the notion that
science is dependent on a method, pointing out that the
invention of atomism (kinetic theory; dispersion theory;
stereochemistry; quantum theory) the gradual emergence of
the wave theory of light, occurred only because some thinkers
either decided not to be bound by certain “obvious” method-
ological rules, or because they unwittingly broke them. (p. 14;
italics in original)
Not following method is absolutely necessary for the growth
of knowledge. In fact, most science only becomes scientific
or reasonable after the fact. Science is a narrative because
it asks a question to which a scientist generates different
theories or hypotheses. These are tested. Only when some
theories or hypotheses have been falsified and there is a sense
that this is the best plausible answer at this time is it called
science. Science narratives are based on hypothesis—and
falsification—and it is possible to falsify without ever bring-
ing down a theory. Grand theories in science are more story
like than expected. In other words, scientific theories only
become clear and reasonable after “incoherent parts of them
have been used for a long time” (Feyerabend, p. 18). In other
words, even scientists impose an order on events that do not
78
inherently have an order. What Feyerabend argued is that
scholars must reject a reductionist view of method in favor
of a pluralistic methodology:
Ideas must be compared with other ideas rather than “expe-
rience” and he [the scientist] must try to improve rather than
discard the views that have failed. . . . [K]nowledge so con-
ceived is not a series of self-consistent theories that converges
toward an ideal view; it is not a gradual approach to truth.
It is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompat-
ible (and perhaps even incommesurable) alternatives, each
single theory, each fairy-tale, each myth that is part of the
collection forcing the others into great articulation and all
of them contributing, via this process of competition, to the
development of our consciousness. (Feyerabend, p. 21)
Placing the story of Genesis along side the story of Coper-
nicus or the creation story of the Hopi is to simultaneously
reject science as the only legitimate source of knowledge and
embrace science by keeping the questions alive.8
Science understood as a method is just part of the his-
tory of science. Science narratives need symbolic and sacred
narratives to generate the plurality and generativity that is
inquiry and the heart of science (Fleener, 2002). Scientists
traditionally seek to distinguish, separate, and categorize,
rather than seek connections, disruptions, or relationships.
This construction of science as a distinct form of inquiry
or research that is bounded and separate from the human-
ities or arts is the result not of the nature of science as
inquiry but rather is one of science and its relationship to
power. Science as a form of narrative inquiry has always
coexisted and interacted with multiple forms of narrative
inquiry.
A primary premise of this article is to suggest that nar-
rative as a mode of inquiry has generated multiple forms
of diverse research across time that have coexisted. This is
in contrast to the simplistic history of inquiry that posits
that research is demarcated by premodern science (prior
to Copernicus), early–modern science (late-16th century to
mid-19th century), and modern science (mid-19th century
to present day), and some scientists might suggest a post-
modern science. This grand narrative presents a tidy, linear
telling of the evolution of science as a distinct mode of in-
quiry. I raise three concerns in regard to this narrative. First,
the nature of this story obscures much of the messiness of sci-
ence. Second, it is a story that constructs science as a series
of progressive stages of increasing infallibility that suggests
more about a culture of science than actual science. Lastly, it
neglects the actual scientific process in which science (as it
advances) actually tells us more about our theories than the
actual world (Bruner, 1996). All three of these attributes of
science—messiness, culture and its theoretical nature—are
related to what Bruner termed “narrative heuristics” (p. 125).
Bruner argued that all science (or perhaps, better said, sci-
entific process) begins with questions, questions that require
that scientists engage narrative through using metaphors,
myths, and hypotheses (stories). For Bruner, the “process of
science making is narrative” (p. 126). Science is never com-
The Journal of Educational Research
plete or finished, otherwise it would not be science. Without
closure it is an unending narrative. Consequently, a primary
criterion used to distinguish science from other types of nar-
ratives becomes illusive. Although science is commonly un-
derstood as seeking truth, and symbolic and sacred narratives
are considered to be fiction, I maintain that science is not
scientific method if it is not actively engaged in perpetuat-
ing questions. In other words, scientists must hold truth at
bay. Likewise, stories are based not on the natural world, but
rather on humans’ experiences of the world. These experi-
ences are no more fiction than are human observations of the
real world. What science narratives as well as symbolic and
sacred narratives have in common is the unending search
for meaning, which requires keeping questions alive.
The heart of narrative inquiry is the raising of questions,
of doubt. Because there will always be change or, in other
words, because the world is not static, research requires ongo-
ing questions. If knowledge is not progressive or cumulative,
as Kuhn (1962) and Feyerabend (1975) have argued, in re-
gard to science then narrative is essential to science. And
science as a form of doubt and questioning is essential to
narrative. It is not a matter of science or narrative; these
are not incommensurate modes of inquiry. Science as well
as sacred and symbolic narratives are distinct but certainly
not incommensurable. The stories told about research sug-
gest that there are tidy boxes in which scholars can neatly
place methodologies and themselves. Yet, these theories and
categories have little relevance for the actual ways in which
we engage in inquiry. I suggest that inquiries are often messy,
blurred, chaotic, and contradictory. It is only after the fact
that scholars construct narratives of coherence that make
research appear tidy, linear, and reasonable.
Conclusion
Like the Greeks who understood that there were multiple
ways of knowing (gnosis and episteme) and who understood
humans as having multiple ways of being, I maintain that
narrative has the potential to remind us of the complex and
multiple ways in which humans make meaning. This re-
quires that as scholars we act as troubadours of knowledge:
that we traverse across terrains that often seem far off and
foreign to us. Wandering, and perhaps getting lost, is key to
the ongoing process of inquiry. How will scholars engage in
dialogue with others if they stay within the comfortable con-
fines of current paradigms? Resituating narrative as inquiry,
as an epistemology of doubt, has the potential to break down
the barriers and walls that keep scholars from engaging in
meaningful dialogues across differences.
I have tried to suggest that the rigid boundaries and bina-
ries that have been constructed in relation to research are
social constructions that privilege certain ways of knowing
over others, thus serving to alienate and estrange schol-
ars from one another. Scholars are led to believe that our
research stances and convictions are incommensurable. In
effect, that we cannot communicate or understand the other.
The Journal of Educational Research
These boundaries are, of course, being challenged. Within
science, there is a growing acceptance that scientific truth
claims are “based more on shared practices and tacit agree-
ments within communities of scientists than on universal
and objective critieria” (Maynes, Pierce, & Laslett, 2008, p.
98). Likewise, the deconstruction of traditionally natural-
istic, interpretive, and literary methods in relation to their
potential to objectify and exploit and colonize those whom
they research has disrupted the notion that any research
is free of power relations or fully emancipatory. These cri-
tiques of science and stories are not meant to suggest that
there can be no claims to truth or that we must succumb to
relativism. On the contrary, these critiques are a reminder
that all inquiry is situated, historical, and contingent. Resit-
uating narrative as inquiry is a reminder that all scholars can
possibly do is generate situated knowledge.
Recognizing that our knowledge, whether based in the sa-
cred, scientific, or story, is incomplete requires that we con-
tinually question our taken for granted assumptions. This
call to reexamine our most deeply held beliefs, to be open to
the other and other ways of knowing and being in the world,
is the difficult work of democratic engagement. Research
cannot be separated from ethics or from life. To the con-
trary, narrative inquiry is part of the fabric which shapes and
reshapes our social life. If, like Dewey (1916), we understand
democracy as a mode of associated living then research con-
stitutes that mode of living as well as seeks to make meaning
of it. Research, then, is not just a method but also a way of life
and living with others. Current understandings of research
based in dualistic, binary assumptions must be disrupted as a
means to break the barriers that divide and separate in order
to create spaces for dialogue. Reconceptualizing narrative as
inquiry is perhaps one way to begin this conversation.
NOTES
1. I use the term humanistic rather than behavioral sciences, social sci-
ences, or even human sciences. Like Polkinghorne (1983), I maintain that
humanistic implies multiple systems of inquiry and not only those that draw
on behaviorism.
2. Note should be taken of framings similar to Hatch’s (2002), which
had 5 paradigms.
3. I am indebted to and borrow from William Doll (1993) and his
sense of iteration. In regard to curriculum, he has articulated the three S’s,
as opposed to the three R’s. He suggested that curriculum must address
science, story, and spirit. In regard to inquiry, I have adapted these to
science, symbolic, and sacred.
4. For a full discussion of the questions raised by the definitions of
science as reported in the National Research Council (2002) report Sci-
entific Research in Education, see the November 2002 issue of Educational
Researcher.
5. As Feuer et al. (2002) also maintained, “no method is good, bad,
scientific, or unscientific in itself: Rather, it is the appropriate application
of method to a particular problem that enables judgments about scientific
quality” (p. 8).
6. Geometry as one of the earliest symbol systems was meant to interpret
and give order to chaos, to understand and interpret the divine plan.
7. Within the realm of symbolic narratives, the range of methods is vast,
including but not limited to structuralism, literary criticism, phenomenol-
ogy, ethnography, life histories, oral histories, poststructuralism, poetry,
aesthetic interpretations, and philosophy.
79
8. I do not mean to suggest that these all be taught as equally legitimate
scientific worldviews, but rather that they be taught specifically in order to
differentiate the various ways in which humans have drawn on narratives
in different times and places to make sense of the world. Unfortunately, in
Louisiana the legislature recently passed the “Louisiana Science Education
Act,” which is designed to encourage critical thinking and promote aca-
demic freedom through the teaching of creationism and intelligent design
in science classrooms. Consequently, intelligent design would be taught as
science, thus conflating epistemologies.
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AUTHOR NOTE
Petra Munro Hendry is the St. Bernard Chapter of the
LSU Alumni Association Endowed Professor in the College
of Education at Louisiana State University. She is the codi-
rector of the Curriculum Theory Project and teaches gradu-
ate level courses in curriculum theory, traditions of inquiry,
and curriculum history. Her scholarship examines the role of
narrative in the construction of curriculum history, educa-
tional research, and teachers’ life histories. She is the author
of several books including, Old South Baton Rouge: Roots
of Hope (2009, University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press),
Subject to Fiction: Women Teachers’ Life History Narratives
and the Cultural Politics of Resistance (1998, Open University
Press) and coauthor of Pedagogies of Resistance: Women Ed-
ucator Activists 1880–1960 (1999, Teachers College Press).
Recent articles have appeared in Qualitative Inquiry, Interna-
tional Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and Journal
of Curriculum Theorizing.
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