Narrative study of teachers and teaching is seen as sited at the intersection of many current intellectual and professional concerns. These include not only classroom practice and professional careers, but also the Self, Experience, Memory, Identity, Autobiography, Life History, Agency, and Structure. Narrative as genre presents post-modernist problems, not least the relation of language to reality and what may count as "data" or evidence. Typical teacher narrative studies possess a narrator, an interpreter-researcher, and an over-reader. Collaborative partnerships between teacher and interpreter generate dynamic text which becomes frozen on publication. The imperative of narrative means selection and emphasis shaped by the relationship context in which the "story" is being told. Narrative and its interpretation are susceptible to transference and countertransference effects. This brings particular strains in respect of notions of validity and to relationships. It is argued that over-readers of frozen texts must treat as data that which is available to them: the interpreters' perceptions. Such interpretations are described as privileged discourses. Interpreters of teacher narratives invite over-readers to trust the evidential bases of their reflections. Teacher narrative studies are seen as fitting into the interpretive case study research approach. Two models are considered as suitable for evaluating such cases. These are the quasi-judicial method and the criterial approach to trustworthiness. The moral and ethical justification for narrative research is seen as primarily one of providing an alternative voice for the disenfranchised. (Two diagrams and 70 endnotes are included; 56 references are attached.) (Author)