Narrative Inquiry

"This Pocket Guide to narrative inquiry will present the method's major theoretical underpinnings; rationales for use of narrative research methods within life history and case study frameworks; primary strategies for eliciting, listening to, and transcribing first-person oral narratives; prevailing analytic frameworks for analysis of such data; ethical considerations and Institutional Review Board-related challenges in narrative inquiry; and issues pertaining to trustworthiness and theoretical and empirical generalization. The author, an esteemed researcher, will illustrate concepts from her on-going narrative investigation of abusive and neglectful mothers who lost and regained custody of their children within one impoverished community, a useful site from which to discuss issues of memory, trauma, context and process, and narrative truth. References to exemplary published narrative studies of questions of concern to social work practitioners in the areas of psychotherapy, child welfare practice, and organizational/community practice, for example, will also be included. The volume is designed, in short, to address the issues an investigator would need to consider in order to develop a narrative inquiry: questions of theory, method, and meaning. Yet, it is not proscriptive. It will focus on the topical areas an investigator should address when planning a narrative study, and it provides a summary of two or three ways in which scholars have answered each one. This approach recognizes the connections among epistemology, features of social work problems, and method that defy simple categorization and acknowledges the emergent and interdisciplinary nature of narrative inquiry."--Provided by publisher.