Although narrative inquiry has a long intellectual history both in and out of education, it is increasingly used in studies of educational experience. One theory in educational research holds that humans are storytelling organisms who, individually and socially, lead storied lives. Thus, the study of narrative is the study of the ways humans experience the world. This general concept is refined into the view that education and educational research is the construction and reconstruction of personal and social stories; learners, teachers, and researchers are storytellers and characters in their own and other's stories. In this paper we briefly survey forms of narrative inquiry in educational studies and outline certain criteria, methods, and writing forms, which we describe in terms of beginning the story, living the story, and selecting stories to construct and reconstruct narrative plots. Certain risks, dangers, and abuses possible in narrative studies are discussed. We conclude by describing a two-part r...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1176100.pdf

Stories of Experience and Narrative Inquiry

Scholars have vacillated for centuries between two opposing assessments of the role of poetics in social life. A long tradition of thinking about language and society argues that verbal art provides a central dynamic force in shaping linguistic structure and linguistic study. This position emerges clearly in the writings of Vico, Herder, and von Humboldt; attention from Sapir, the Russian "Formalists," and members of the Prague School to the role of poetics contributed to the development of performance studies and ethnopoe­ tics in the last two decades. Nonetheless, poetics has often been marginalized by anthropologists and linguists who believe that aesthetic uses of language are merely parasitic upon such "core" areas of linguistics as phonology, syntax, and semantics, or upon such anthropological fields as economy and social organization. The balance between these two views shifted in favor of poetics in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a new emphasis on performance directed attention away from study of the formal patterning and symbolic content of texts to the emergence of verbal art in the social interaction between performers and

Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life

Multicultural Education: Historical Development, Dimensions, and Practice

A community probability sample of southern, working-class, black men (N=132)between 17 and 60 years of age was administered a scale to measure the degree to which they felt they could control their environment through hard work and determination. Since the legend of John Henry—the famous, black steeldriver of American folklore—can be understood as a cultural statement about how black Americans must often attempt to control behavioral Stressors through hard work and determination, items for the scale were developed to reflect the theme of John Henryism. It was hypothesized that men scoring below the median on education but above the median on John Henryism would have higher blood pressures than any other group. The data were in line with the prediction, in that men who scored low on education and high on John Henryism had significantly higher diastolic blood pressures than men who scored above the median on both measures. Study findings are discussed in terms of the meaning that education and John Henryism may have for raising or lowering autonomic arousal when individuals encounter behavioral Stressors in everyday life. Preliminary construct validity evidence for the John Henryism Scale is also presented.

John Henryism and blood pressure differences among Black men.

This article develops a conceptual framework of research genres that illustrate the complex multidisciplinary roots of multicultural education. The primary objective is to provide educational researchers and teacher educators with a lens as they design new (or rethink existing) inquiry and teacher preparation programs in the meta-disciplinary field of multicultural education. Other objectives are to encourage multicultural theoreticians to consult a range of original research (as opposed to other theoreticians and secondary or tertiary sources in the field), and to underscore hopeful possibilities for practice. The framework also invites a rethinking of the genres as conceptualized in this paper. The proposed genres originate from the author’s immersion in multi-cultural theory, research, and practice spanning over three decades. Examples of research are included to clarify the nature of the genres, as well as the interactive connections across genres within the framework as a whole and implications for p...

Genres of Research in Multicultural Education.

When Black Culture and Black Consciousness first appeared thirty years ago, it marked a revolution in our understanding of African American history. Contrary to prevailing ideas at the time, which held that African culture disappeared quickly under slavery and that black Americans had little group pride, history, or cohesiveness, Levine uncovered a cultural treasure trove, illuminating a rich and complex African American oral tradition, including songs, proverbs, jokes, folktales, and long narrative poems called toasts--work that dated from before and after emancipation. The fact that these ideas and sources seem so commonplace now is in large part due this book and the scholarship that followed in its wake. A landmark work that was part of the \"cultural turn\" in American history, Black Culture and Black Consciousness profoundly influenced an entire generation of historians and continues to be read and taught. For this anniversary reissue, Levine wrote a new preface reflecting on the writing of the book and its place within intellectual trends in African American and American cultural history.

Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom

This set re-issues classic works on folklore by Richard M. Dorson which trace the historical development of the idea of folklore from the Sixteenth Century to the First World War. The set also brings together the theoretical writings from folklorists.

The British folklorists: A history,

Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction

Folklore and Fakelore: Essays Toward a Discipline of Folk Studies

Preface: Richard M. Dorson Introduction: W. Edson Richmond Part I. Topics of Research American Experiences American Cultural Myths American Settings American Entertainments American Forms and Performers Part II. Interpretation of Reasearch Part III. Methods of Research Part IV. Presentation of Research

Richard M. Dorson

Papers

Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom

The British folklorists: A history,

Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction

Folklore and Fakelore: Essays Toward a Discipline of Folk Studies

Handbook of American Folklore