Abstract

This article presents the case study of a university teacher’s journey focusing on struggles he faced in the personal and professional space during his teaching career that shaped his pedagogic practices. Bourdieu’s structural parameters and Engström’s (1987) theory of expansive learning provided analytical concepts, including reflexivity, to study the pedagogical praxis of this teacher. The analysis of data collected using the biographical narrative interviewing method, classroom observation, and autobiographical writings of the teacher reveals that as he questions his social positioning, academic “field,” and intellectual bias, he experiences conflicts and tensions that arise from several disruptions resulting in pain and frustrations at one level and at another level shaping his desire and the ability to engage critically and historically with the processes and outcomes of personal and pedagogic interrogations. He realizes that there is no “A” algorithm for developing reflexivity. It takes a lifetime for a teacher to build a reflexive praxis.