Storylines of self-management: narratives of people with diabetes from a multiethnic inner city population

Objectives: To analyse the narratives of people with diabetes to inform the design of culturally congruent self-management education programmes. Methods: The study was based on quasi-naturalistic story-gathering; i.e. making real-time field notes of stories shared spontaneously in diabetes self-management education groups in a socioeconomically deprived London borough. Eighty-two adults aged 25-86, from six minority ethnic groups who were in the intervention arm of a randomized controlled trial of story-sharing, participated. Stories were translated in real time by the facilitator or group members. Ethnographic field notes were transcribed, and analysed thematically (to identify self-management domains raised by participants) and interpretively for over-arching storylines (i.e. considering how self-management domains were contextualized and made meaningful in personal narratives). Analysis was informed by both biomedical and sociological theories of self-management. Results: People with diabetes identified seven self-management domains: knowledge; diet; exercise; medication; foot care; self-monitoring; and attending check-ups. Interpretive analysis revealed eight illness storylines within which these practical issues acquired social meaning and moral worth: becoming sick; rebuilding spoiled identity; becoming a practitioner of self-management; living a disciplined and balanced life; mobilizing a care network; navigating and negotiating in the health care system; managing the micro-morality of self-management ‘choices’; and taking collective action. Conclusion: Living with diabetes involves both medically recommended behaviours and complex biographical work to make sense of and cope with illness. Self-management education programmes should take closer account of over-arching storylines that pattern experience of chronic illness and recognize that some elements of self-management knowledge cannot be pre-specified in a structured curriculum

Telling stories, hearing stories: The value to midwifery students, Part 2

This article reports on the findings of a narrative inquiry that aimed to explore the value that students place on birth storytelling, and the significant stories that they tell and hear during their midwifery programme. This is the second of two articles and focuses on whether storytelling is valued by students in developing their learning. Purposive sampling of two cohorts of final year midwifery students from one university in the south east of England in 2007 elicited five participants. Two focus groups enabled data collection and seven themes emerged from the data analysis: Validating experiences; stories used as reflection; listening to other students' stories; retold stories; lecturers' humorous stories; not wanting to be judged by mentors when recounting stories; and opportunities for story-sharing. Storytelling appears to assist students to integrate and enhance their experiential learning, particularly on returning from practice placements into the classroom. The findings suggest storytelling is valued by students and does facilitate learning. This study can have implications for students, mentors, midwifery lecturers, others in higher education and for curriculum development

Traditional Musics in Music Education - The Sound of (R)evolution?

This chapter describes a SIDA (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) and later Linnaeus Palme project that in the years 2008-2016 aimed to start a Music Education Department at a Music Conservatoire in Vietnam derived from the renovation of curriculums for music in schools. It discusses the questions concerning traditional music in a school context by addressing how higher education is linked to the prerequisites in teaching traditional musics in schools and how government policies and renovation of curriculum plays an important role