Abstract

In this paper we propose the use of a biographic-narrative method and, particularly, the reconstruction of life histories as a tool we can use to understand professional identity. Several changes have taken place in the both the educational context and the professional world since the role of the Teacher in Music Education began. By reconstructing their life histories, the teachers share with us their own explanations about their teaching practice and the difficulties they faced, for example, whilst at the same time allowing us to evaluate the impact of the different life experiences that have occurred throughout the teaching process have had on their beliefs and teaching skills. Thus, through this narrative discussion, we can encourage the teachers to reflect critically upon their own practices, which will subsequently be transformed, and detect their training needs in order to propose future training that is better suited to their needs. Therefore, we are going to focus on the description of this tool, to justify its useful role in educational research and we will describe the different phases used to reconstruct the life histories, from the initial stage of collecting the information to the last stage of writing the final report.