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Narrative construction is an approach to social research in which data are configured into any of a variety of diachronic, or storied, formats. Having recently gained popularity, this approach is now in danger of marginalization (along with other qualitative and quantitative forms of social research) as a result of politically charged attempts to reinstitute a narrow methodological orthodoxy. In an attempt to prompt discussion about the future of this inquiry approach, the author asks questions that highlight recurring issues within ongoing conversations among educational researchers who advocate and/or engage in the construction of narratives. These questions relate to the political character of stories, fictionalization, audience, modalities of representation, quality control, research purpose, and strategies for maintaining and enlarging the space for narrative construction as a qualitative research approach within an era of political retrogression.H ave those of us who celebrate the potential of innovative forms of educational research, now in this first decade of a new millenium, fallen on times even harder than those with which we are accustomed? Observing the landscape of educational research within the United States, it is difficult to avoid awareness of moves, especially at the level of the federal government, toward a narrowing of the officially sanctioned methodological spectrum. Given the influence of American thought, culture, and government policy over the rest of the globe, residents of other countries who advocate and practice forms of educational research that are not conventionally scientific might also take notice of this narrowing.

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