Search results for " narratives."
showing 10 items of 51 documents
Le récit d’esclave africain-américain : réflexions sur une appellation générique
2015
What do we talk about when we talk about 'slave narratives?' African American slave narratives have been a staple of American literary studies over the past decades. The narratives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs and other ex-slaves have been recovered, anthologized and discussed by eminent critics such as Marion Wilson Starling, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Frances Smith Foster and William L. Andrews. For all its ubiquity, however, the generic label 'slave narrative' has been used in many different ways by specialists of African American literature. In this essay I argue that the systematic and sometimes uncritical use of the label has led to generalizations that limit our understanding of…
Paternal masculinities in early fatherhood: dominant and counter narratives by Finnish first-time fathers
2013
In this article, we seek to extend understanding of the role of gender in early fatherhood by examining narratives of paternal masculinities, that is, the social and cultural constructions of gendered practices and conventions produced by men on their roles as male parents. The data comprised interviews with 44 Finnish first-time fathers (aged 20-42 years) living in a heterosexual relationship. The narrative of the “decent father,” was identified as the dominant narrative of paternal masculinity in early fatherhood. Although the narrative was characterized by some important gendered differences, it was also in line with the well-known concept of the “new father.” Two counter narratives, la…
Illness Narrative and Self-Help Culture – Self-Help Writing on Age-Related Infertility
2014
Both self-help books and illness narratives are motivated by an impulse to overcome a crisis and, simultaneously, to help others who suffer from similar conditions. In doing so, authors of self-help and illness narratives move in between polar opposites: they have both individual and collective motives, they have a desire to overcome uncertainty and achieve control and they negotiate the authority of experience versus the authority of expertise. This paper has two objectives: (1) It describes the intersections of illness life writing and self-help culture and traces the thematic, cultural and historical similarities. (2) It analyzes a selection of four autobiographical, U.S.-American self-h…
Health(care) in the Crisis: Reflections in Science and Society on Opioid Addiction
2021
Opioid abuse and misuse have led to an epidemic which is currently spreading worldwide. Since the number of opioid overdoses is still increasing, it is becoming obvious that current rather unsystematic approaches to tackle this health problem are not effective. This review suggests that fighting the opioid epidemic requires a structured public health approach. Therefore, it is important to consider not only scientific and biomedical perspectives, but societal implications and the lived experience of groups at risk as well. Hence, this review evaluates the risk factors associated with opioid overdoses and investigates the rates of chronic opioid misuse, particularly in the context of chronic…
Agency in first-semester university students’ career plans
2014
In this paper I examine expressions of agency in autobiographical narratives by Finnish speaking university students of Swedish. Students who write about themselves, their decisions and their career plans are simultaneously involved in (re)constructing their identities. The narratives often include references to “communities of practice” (Lave & Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998) that the students consider as significant, and whose membership they see as something worth dreaming of. These kinds of first-person stories can be regarded as important as far as identity formation is concerned (Sfard & Prusak 2005). The narratives can help in building a bridge between the narrator’s past, the present and …
Spēles naratīva analīze: “Half Life” franšīze
2022
Pētījuma galvenais mērķis ir atklāt, kā stāstījumu tehnikas pielietotas video spēļu franšīzē Half-Life. Pētījumam izvēlētas četras franšīzes Half-Life un Half-Life 2 spēles. Teorētiskajā daļā tika apskatīts, kā stāstījumu jēdzieni ir pielāgojami video spēļu pētījumam. Izvēlēto video spēļu analīze parādīja, ka stāstījumu izteiksmes līdzekļi un struktūras var tikt pielietotas arī izvēlētajām video spēlēm, dažām no tām stingri neievērojot avotu teorētiskos ierobežojumus. Pētījuma rezultāti nodrošina plašāku video spēļu stāstījumu izpētes iespējas.
Becoming a Language Teacher: A dream come true or a source of anxiety?
2015
In this qualitative study the author examined personal narratives written by 14 Finnish speaking student teachers of Swedish, in order to find out what they tell about their thoughts and feelings concerning their future work as language teachers. The following three themes were in focus: firstly, what university students tell about their reasons for wanting to become teachers in the first place; secondly, what kinds of worries concerning their future work they mention in their narratives; and thirdly, how student teachers could be supported during transition from teacher education to teaching. According to the study, students choose teaching for reasons that are related to: (a) teacher iden…
Liikunta-alan tutkintokoulutuksen merkitykset valmistuneiden elämänkertomuksissa : fenomenografinen analyysi
2021
Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli kuvailla, millaisia laadullisesti erilaisia merkityksiä liikunta-alan tutkinnon suorittaneet antoivat alan tutkintokoulutukselle urateemaisissa elämänkertomuksissaan. Kertomusten avulla oli mahdollista tavoittaa koulutukselle annetut merkitykset suhteessa uran muotoutumisen monitahoisuuteen. Tutkimukseen osallistui 60 liikuntaneuvoja-, liikunnanohjaaja- (AMK tai YAMK) tai liikuntatieteiden maisteri -tutkinnon vuosina 2004–2015 suorittanutta henkilöä, jotka vastasivat avoimeen kirjoituskutsuun. Kutsussa osallistujia pyydettiin kirjoittamaan tutkimusta varten oma urateemainen elämäntarinansa. Kertomusaineisto analysoitiin fenomenografisesti etsimällä tekste…
The (im)possible success of disadvantaged students. Reflections on education, migration and social change
2019
The paper focuses on the ?unexpected pathways? of successful students with an immigrant background: these biographical routes, that seems socially impossible, raise theoretical issues around the individual-society, actor-structure relationship. Disadvantaged students who succeed represent a sociological challenge in the attempt to understand atypical situations and to identify the institutional processes and the structural opportunities that facilitate them, reducing ethnic inequalities in education. This framework is the starting point of the Su.Per. project (Success in educational pathways of students with immigrant background), based on the collection of written autobiographies of 65 imm…
Student teachers and their identity construction and awareness of multilingualism: re-visiting three studies
2019
[EN] This article re-visits three studies that originally focused on beliefs about second language (L2) learning and teaching held by student teachers. The studies have been conducted in the same educational context (that is, at a Finnish university). The participants in the studies are majors or minors in English, Swedish, German, etc., and they range from first-year students to fifth-year students about to graduate as qualified L2 teachers. Data have been collected by a variety of means over the past few years (questionnaires, sentence-completion tasks, drawings), and partly longitudinally. The pools of data (verbal and visual) will be re-analysed from the perspective of identity construc…