| Abstract: | Narrative analysis offers a powerful and accessible means of understanding the ways in which individuals experience learning across a range of educational sites. Drawing on a recent study that explored ‘dyspraxic’ pupils' experiences of drawing from observation, this paper offers an insight into the potential that narrative analysis has for enhancing our understanding of the ways in which individuals experience complex contexts for learning, where the fields of art education, ‘special’ education and inclusion intersect. I argue here that a narrative approach can enhance our understanding of pupils' experiences of learning by a capacity to resist the compartmentalization of experience. The ‘natural’ drive to use narrative as an interpretive procedure for explaining departures from the ‘norm’ is also discussed, with the concepts of ‘breach and exception’ offering a useful frame for exploring the spaces between centres of practice in art education and the potentially ‘de-centred’ ‘dyspraxic’ learner. |
