The turn towards narrative methodologies in comparative and international education

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

In this panel, five emerging scholars discuss their use of narrative methodologies in Comparative and International Education research. Drawing on interpretivist, critical, and poststructural approaches, we argue that narrative research methodologies provide robust and ethical ways to explore the lived educational experiences of research participants. Through a discussion of narrative methodologies and our multiple uses of these methodologies in our work, we also raise important questions about representation and voice in comparative and international education research.

In this presentation, we follow the work of Polkinghorne (1995) by broadly defining narrative as a story “that combine[s] a succession of incidents into a unified episode” (p. 7). We employ narrative research in recognition that individuals often share their experiences through stories and that, in providing “narrative view[s] of experience,” individuals both construct their reality and give their experiences meaning through such storytelling (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000, p. 127). In our own research, we draw on two types of narrative research as identified by Polkinghorne, analysis of narratives and narrative analysis, where the former draws on stories to examine educational themes and processes and the latter “privileges subjects’ stories as coherent wholes…represent[ing] a distinct form of knowing, namely narrative knowing” (Willemsen, 2016, p. 96).

Through this panel discussion, we seek to illustrate the strengths of narrative research for the field of Comparative and International Education by illustrating our own uses of the methodology. We each employ narrative research in different ways, to different ends, which we discuss in this panel. Anna Kaiper discusses how she combines critical discourse analysis, narrative inquiry and ethnographic methods into what she calls Critical Ethnographic Narrative Analysis (CENA)(Kaiper, 2018). She further examines how narratives were co-constructed by the researcher and research participants in her work with domestic workers in South Africa. Laura Seithers draws on her research with Saudi Arabian women international students in the US to represent narrative research as a journey in which researchers and participants become co-storytellers. She considers “the story of the research” as a space of negotiation and reflexivity to explore the cross-cultural differences between researchers and research participants in comparative and international education. Judith Merinyo and Laura Wangsness Willemsen share their personal experiences conducting life history research with young women in Tanzania. They illuminate the very real, personal and professional challenges and opportunities that arise as narrative research relationships become interwoven with personal relationships and experiences. Finally, Elisheva Cohen discusses her research with Syrian refugee students in Jordan to illustrate the role narrative research can play in disrupting dominant discourses surrounding “the refugee experience” by showing the complexities, contradictions, and chaos in a story. She also highlights the challenges that arise in conducting narrative research with vulnerable populations. Within this discussion, we seek to illustrate the strengths of narrative research for our work and the field of Comparative and International Education.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Laura Seithers, University of Minnesota

Individual Presentations

• Critical Ethnographic Narrative Analysis: The "E" in CENA - Anna Kaiper, Pennsylvania State University

• Centering Relationships and Crossing Borders in Narrative Inquiry - Laura Wangsness Willemsen, Concordia University, Saint Paul; Judith Merinyo, Project Zawadi Tanzania

• The Possibilities and Perils of Narrative Inquiry in Refugee Education Research - Elisheva Cohen, University of Minnesota

Discussant

• Frances Vavrus, University of Minnesota