Preface

The impetus for undertaking this book comes from two sources. Firstly, there was a strong desire to produce something from our collaborations as a narrative research group, something that would provide a resource for other narrative researchers. Secondly, there was a common experience of those within our narrative group of encountering difficulty in navigating the diversity of literature surrounding narrative research. At times, there appear to be contradictions between research that uses similar labels and clearly delineated ‘camps’ or factions of researchers. For many of us, this caused difficulties knowing how to encompass theoretical positions that were in alignment with our desires for our research and the needs of our project. The purpose of this volume is to attempt to look across the entire landscape of narrative methods drawing out signifi cant perspectives and identify the variety of theoretical positions. Some of this work has been started by others ( Squire , Andrews and Tamboukou 2008; Pinnegar and Daynes 2007; Clandinin and Murphy 2007; Bamberg 2007), and we draw heavily on their work as we attempt to synthesise their ideas and present a possible framework for understanding the diverse possibilities for research that uses narrative methods..

Diverse disability identities: the accomplishment of 'Child with a disability' in everyday interaction between parents and teachers

In this paper we analyse how specific 'disability identities' were accomplished for students in special education facilities by their teachers and parents as they communicated about the ordinary events of daily schooling. We employ membership categorisation analysis (MCA), an analytic within the theoretical frame of ethnomethodology, to investigate in fine detail the communication between the parents and teachers of two primary-school aged children, Roger and Becky. Our analysis highlights the complexity and subtlety of how diverse disability identities are actually achieved in everyday schooling contexts, and demonstrates possibilities for reconstituting the 'Child with a disability' as more agentic and self-aware

Narrative research in practice: stories from the field

This book directly addresses the multiplicity and complexity of narrative research by illustrating a variety of avenues to pursuing and publishing research that falls under the umbrella of narrative work. The chapters are drawn from a wide range of disciplines including education, literary studies, cultural studies, music and clinical studies. Each chapter considers a particular methodological issue or approach, illustrating how it was addressed in the course of the research. Each of the chapters concludes with a set of discussion exercises and a further reading list. The book offers a valuable resource for established researchers seeking to expand their methodological and theoretical repertoire, and for graduate students and researchers new to narrative methods

Participatory Activist Research in the Globalised WorldSocial Change Through the Cultural Professions /

XXIII, 238 p. 27 illus.online resource