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Personal Narratives (personal + narrative)
Selected AbstractsRereading the Dominant Narrative of MentoringCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 4 2000Alexandra Semeniuk Mentoring is currently being promoted as an effective means of easing new teachers' transition from preservice programs to the profession.. At the same time it is seen as a way of providing teacher development for those teachers with more experience. Furthermore researchers promote mentoring as a force for change to diminish isolation and promote teacher collaboration. In this article I present an overview,the dominant narrative,of some recent research on formalized mentoring programs in education. Bringing this material together reveals that researchers are virtually unanimous in their enthusiasm for these initiatives. A dialogue which took place between me and a colleague/friend about what we construed as our mentoring relationshippotentially serves as a counternarrative to this prevalent story. Through an analysis of the educational research and the personal narrative, I suggest that the widely accepted view of mentoring may need to be reread, particularly in relation to language: mentoring's meaning is now imprecise because it is used as an umbrella term for many kinds of affiliations in teaching. Inrereading our narrative I argue that my colleague/friend and I did not act as each other's mentor. Rather, our professional association became entwined with the friendship we developed over time. I maintain that by doing a similar rereading of the research on mentoring in education we might find richer and more precise language to describe how we as teachers can assist one another in becoming sophisticated professionals. [source] Melancholy, Topography and the Search for Origin in Ingeborg Bachmann's Drei Wege Zum SeeGERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 2 2009Katya Krylova ABSTRACT Bachmann's Drei Wege zum See is a text insistently preoccupied with questions of identity, origin and origination. Operating along a topographical structure that both frames and drives the narrative, its concern is a walking through personal and collective history in search of an elusive point of origin. This attempt is always necessarily melancholic, standing under the perennial threat of missed or failed homecomings. Using psychoanalytic conceptions of psychic topography and Walter Benjamin's conception of origin, this essay explores the intersections of memory, place and identity in Drei Wege zum See, as well as drawing on related theories of melancholy and nostalgia. The present article builds on previous explorations of identity, intertextuality and collective memory in Drei Wege zum See, shedding a new light on these through consideration of the text's psychotopographical preoccupation. I explore how an attempt to reconstruct a personal narrative with the aid of a topographical frame is one that will always resist totalisation, where reconstruction may only ever be partial, never complete. Finally, I argue that topographical melancholy is a highly productive mode of identity formation, serving to subvert and overturn falsifying constructions of personal and collective identity. [source] Heroes in the nursery: Three case studies in resilienceJOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2002Carl F. Rak This article examines the therapeutic work in three cases (child, adolescent, adult) to study the impact of a supportive and nurturing parent early in life upon the development of resilience. The close analysis of the clinical material of each client's personal narrative is the primary source. The metaphor of "heroes in the nursery" is posited as a vehicle for enhancing understandings of the development of resilience. Each case provides additive meaning to recent studies that elevate the importance of the memories of parents to the development of resilient responses of children later in life. Each case reveals specific dimensions of the impact of heroes in the nursery which extend our understandings of resiliency in children and adolescents as a proactive response to stress, trauma, and loss. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 58: 247,260, 2002. [source] Ladies Are Seen, Not Heard: Language Socialization in a Southern, African American Cosmetology SchoolANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2003Professor Lanita Jacobs-HueyArticle first published online: 8 JAN 200 This article examines language socialization among African American cosmetology students. To constitute themselves as hair experts, freshman and senior students learn to distinguish between specialized and lay hair terminology, avoid loud talking, and ask clients' diagnostic questions. Students also reframe textbook metacommunicative theories using personal narrative, role-play, and "mother wit." Findings from this ethnographic and discourse analytic study highlight the actual processes through which students learn to speak as and hence, become "hair experts." Data further reveal how language learning is shaped by students' cultural and communal contexts. [source] What Madness Prompts, Reason Writes: New York City September 11,October 2, 2001ANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2002Professor Jeanne Henry This personal narrative describes the use of ethnographic data collection as a means for its author, a New York City resident, to take stock of local reaction and response to the events of September 11 by documenting arid analyzing the writing New Yorkers posted in public spaces during the three weeks following the attacks on the World Trade Center. [source] "When I Grow Up I'd Like to Work in a Place Like This": Museum Professionals' Narratives of Early Interest in MuseumsCURATOR THE MUSEUM JOURNAL, Issue 1 2000MICHAEL SPOCK ABSTRACT As part of an exploratory research study, museum professionals were asked to share their stories about pivotal learning experiences in museums. Several offered personal narratives of how they first became interested in museums and started down the path toward careers in museum work, or had their imaginations opened to the possibility of broader life horizons. This group of stories seemed to be grounded in particularly vivid memories and frequently elicited strong emotions in the telling. The narratives are evidence of the impact of early museum experiences on people who later found their way into museum careers, and suggest avenues for further study of the roots of museum careers as well as other ways museums profoundly affect people's lives. The stories can also reveal to the teller, as well as to researchers and others, what stands out in their memories and the importance they assign to those memories. By attending to the thematic and emotional content of these narratives, both narrator and colleagues can find clues about where their beliefs and values really lie and, therefore, where their and the profession's time and resources might be most productively invested. [source] Using e-Journals to Assess Students' Language Awareness and Social Identity During Study AbroadFOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 1 2010Julia Aguilar Stewart Abstract: This article reports on a study that explored the use of e-journals to understand through students' personal narratives what factors (gender, living situation, classroom dynamic, social network) may have influenced their learning during the study abroad semester. Pretests on language measures were compared with posttest results, and information was gleaned from students' journal entries to assess possible relationships between a student's language gains and the development of his or her social identity during study abroad. In view of the call for more targeted assessment of program goals and learning outcomes by accrediting bodies in higher education, e-journals are proposed as a means of closely following students' progress and the factors that may be affecting their learning in the study abroad context. [source] An exploratory study of the influences that compromise the sun protection of young adultsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 6 2008Ngaia Calder Abstract This paper reports on an exploratory research project designed to gain a deeper understanding of the influences on ultraviolet radiation (UVR) behaviours among high-risk young adults to determine what compromises the adoption of protection measures for this group. A dual approach using focus groups and the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique was used to provide personal narratives related to UVR behaviour for tertiary education students. Results from both ,conversations' were content-analysed using an iterative ,bootstrapping' technique to identify key themes and issues. This exploratory research identified a number of key themes including effect on mood, influence of culture, the value of tans, unrealistic optimism, risk-orientation, and the role of experience. This group felt that they not been targeted effectively by public health campaigns and did not fully understand the dangers of high-risk UVR behaviours. Although a number of previous studies have investigated the relationship between knowledge and behaviour, and largely concluded that increases in knowledge do not lead to increases in adoption of protection practices, the preliminary findings of this study reveal that the knowledge and perceived self efficacy of protective practices is extremely high, what is lacking is the perceived threat and thus the motivations to adopt such behaviours. The conclusions drawn from this research indicate that there are a variety of important influencing factors that compromise UVR behaviours, in particular, the lack of perceived seriousness and severity towards long term consequences such as skin cancer. The recommendation to address the imbalance of ,perceived threat' and ,outcome expectations' is to focus on increasing knowledge of skin cancer, particularly susceptibility to skin cancer and the severity of the condition. [source] Making Meaning: Women's Birth NarrativesJOURNAL OF OBSTETRIC, GYNECOLOGIC & NEONATAL NURSING, Issue 4 2004FAAN professor, Lynn Clark Callister RN Birth stories are personal narratives grounded in the pivotal life experience of giving birth. Richly descriptive birth narratives from culturally diverse childbearing women document the importance of listening to the voices of women. Benefits of sharing birth stories include the opportunity for integration of a major event into the framework of a mother's life; the opportunity to share a significant life experience; the opportunity to discuss fears, concerns, "missing pieces" or feelings of inadequacy or disappointment; the opportunity for the woman to gain an understanding of her strengths; and the opportunity to connect with other women. Providing women with the opportunity to share their birth stories is an important nursing intervention. [source] Asian and Pacific Islander women scientists and engineers: A narrative exploration of model minority, gender, and racial stereotypesJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 4 2002Pauline W.U. Chinn This qualitative study uses narrative methodology to understand what becoming a scientist or engineer entails for women stereotyped as "model minorities." Interviews with four Chinese and Japanese women focused on the social contexts in which science is encountered in classrooms, families, and community. Interpretation was guided by theories that individuals construct personal narratives mediated by cultural symbolic systems to make meaning of experiences. Narratives revealed that Confucian cultural scripts shaped gender expectations even in families several generations in America. Regardless of parents' level of education, country of birth, and number of children, educational expectations, and resources were lower for daughters. Parents expected daughters to be compliant, feminine, and educated enough to be marriageable. Findings suggest K,12 gender equity science practices encouraged development of the women's interests and abilities but did not affect parental beliefs. The author's 1999 study of Hawaiians/Pacific Islander and Filipina female engineers is included in implications for teacher education programs sensitive to gender, culture, ethnicity, and language. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 302,323, 2002 [source] National subjects: September 11 and Pearl HarborAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 3 2004Geoffrey M. White ABSTRACT Despite a long tradition of writing on collective representations of the past, anthropology has contributed relatively little to the expanding literature on national memory. Yet ethnographic approaches have the facility to delineate practices that create historical narrative and give it emotive power while keeping in view longer-term political forces that underwrite dominant imaginaries. In this article I inquire into the discursive origins of emotional involvement in national history by juxtaposing two events of spectacular violence, September 11 and Pearl Harbor. Focusing on the representation of these events in public culture and at memorial sites, I argue that personal narratives play a central role in formations of national subjectivity, at times emotionalizing dominant memories and at other times opening possibilities for alternative visions. [source] Thriving as Becoming Resolute in Narratives of Women Surviving Childhood MaltreatmentAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY, Issue 3 2009Joanne M. Hall PhD The purpose of this feminist interpretive study was to portray the experience of women thriving after childhood maltreatment (CM) through personal narratives. An interdisciplinary team conducted multiple in-depth interviews of 44 women survivors of CM who identified themselves as successful and doing well. The interviews focused on "what worked" and "what did not" with the aim of exploring aftereffects of CM; strengths and strategies; interactions helpful in overcoming abuse; and related sociopolitical contexts. Narrative analyses revealed a distinct, dynamic process of becoming resolute characterized by six dimensions that were not sequential steps but characteristics, actions, and interactions. This study offers a new understanding of the experience of women gaining solid footing in their lives, the peace of knowing the abuse is over, and power to move in an upward trajectory. [source] Trauma as a metaphor: the politics of psychotherapy after September 11PSYCHOTHERAPY AND POLITICS INTERNATIONAL, Issue 1 2005Karen SeeleyArticle first published online: 9 JAN 200 Abstract This paper explores the links between mental health practice and politics by examining the implications of turning persons harmed by an act of mass violence into patients with psychiatric disorders, and of prescribing psychotherapy to treat reactions to terrorism. It first considers the interpretative aspects of diagnosis, the social and political implications of particular diagnostic categories, the history of PTSD, and the phenomenon of medicalization. It then looks at the ways psychotherapists privatize social and political experience by emphasizing the personal consequences of community catastrophes, and by helping individuals transform collective history into personal narratives. In closing, it asks whether mental health discourses depoliticize experience, thereby discouraging political engagement and the development of political consciousness. Copyright © 2005 Whurr Publishers Ltd. [source] The future of psychotherapy for mentally ill children and adolescentsTHE JOURNAL OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY AND ALLIED DISCIPLINES, Issue 1-2 2009John S. March Objective:, Given striking advances in translational developmental neuroscience and its convergence with developmental psychopathology and developmental epidemiology, it is now clear that mental illnesses are best thought of as neurodevelopmental disorders. This simple fact has enormous implications for the nature and organization of psychotherapy for mentally ill children, adolescents and adults. Method:, This article reviews the ,trajectory' of psychosocial interventions in pediatric psychiatry, and makes some general predictions about where this field is heading over the next several decades. Results:, Driven largely by scientific advances in molecular, cellular and systems neuroscience, psychotherapy in the future will focus less on personal narratives and more on the developing brain. In place of disorders as intervention targets, modularized psychosocial treatment components derived from current cognitive-behavior therapies will target corresponding central nervous system (CNS) information processes and their functional behavioral consequences. Either preventive or rehabilitative, the goal of psychotherapy will be to promote development along typical developmental trajectories. In place of guilds, psychotherapy will be organized professionally much as physical therapy is organized today. As with other forms of increasingly personalized health care, internet-based delivery of psychotherapy will become commonplace. Conclusion:, Informed by the new field of translational developmental neuroscience, psychotherapy in the future will take aim at the developing brain in a service delivery model that closely resembles the place and role of psychosocial interventions in the rest of medicine. Getting there will be, as they say, interesting. [source] Street Life under a RoofANTHROPOLOGY & HUMANISM, Issue 2 2009Emily Margaretten SUMMARY This article offers a story about community formation right along the sidelines of the streets. It traces the transitory movements of youth in South Africa, their sojourns from the streets to shelters and places of their own making. Blending personal narratives with ethnographic description and analyses, this article illustrates a crossing over of moments in which abandonment and abuse give rise to instances of companionship, care, and cohabitation. [source] MASS-VACCINATION PROGRAMMES AND THE VALUE OF RESPECT FOR AUTONOMYBIOETHICS, Issue 5 2008LOTTE ASVELD ABSTRACT Respect for autonomy is problematic in relation to public health programmes such as vaccination, as the success of such programmes depends on widespread compliance. European countries have different policies for dealing with objectors to vaccination programmes. In some countries compliance is compulsory, while in others objectors are exempted or allowed to enter the programme under specific conditions. In this paper I argue that the objectors should not be treated as a homogenous group as is done in the above-mentioned policies. Objectors have different arguments for not participating in vaccination programmes. Considering the value of respect for autonomy, some but not all of these arguments need to be accommodated by authorities. The concept of ,narrative autonomy' provides criteria to distinguish between tenable and untenable claims to the right to refuse vaccination. Narrative autonomy understands autonomy as essentially linked to identity, as this provides the moral framework with which we assess our first-order preferences. The above-mentioned concept of autonomy is derived from the concept of narrative identity as described by Marya Schechtman. She suggests that the application of the Articulation Constraint and the Reality Constraint enables us to establish the validity of personal narratives. Additionally, form and content features of identity, as proposed by Anthony Laden, will be used as criteria to establish the compatibility of the defectors' arguments with shared scientific and political values. Such compatibility is essential to accommodate respect for autonomy in the context of public health. [source] HR fables: schizophrenia, selling your soul in dystopia, fuck the employees, and sleepless nightsBUSINESS ETHICS: A EUROPEAN REVIEW, Issue 4 2008Ian Steers Aesop's fables are used to gather HR fables and these fables are told mainly in the words of the protagonists of these moral stories, HR practitioners. Leaving the moral meaning of the fables for the reader to interpret so the reader can ethically connect with the morality of HR work, the personal narratives of practitioners and their humanity, the fables conclude with a critical commentary by the author, the promotion of a human virtue and HR moral maxim. The article, itself, then ends with an explanation of the research methodology adopted to compile the HR fables. [source] |