Search results for "narrative research"

Exploring teachers’ stories of writing : a narrative perspective

2018

This study takes a narrative perspective to examine teachers as writers and autobiographical creative writing as a way for promoting teachers’ professional development. In a creative writing group for Finnish primary and secondary school teachers, the teachers expressed themselves and explored their lives and identities through autobiographical creative writing. The aim of this study was to examine the stories the teachers tell about their relationship to writing and the goals they set for their professional and personal development in the writing group. Through thematic analysis, seven descriptive themes were found in teachers’ narratives of writing. Furthermore, based on the narrative ana…

Coordinated Interpersonal Behaviour in Collective Dance Improvisation: The Aesthetics of Kinaesthetic Togetherness

2018

International audience; Collective dance improvisation (e.g., traditional and social dancing, contact improvisation) is a participatory, relational and embodied art form which eschews standard concepts in aesthetics. We present our ongoing research into the mechanisms underlying the lived experience of "togetherness" associated with such practices. Togetherness in collective dance improvisation is kinaesthetic (based on movement and its perception), and so can be simultaneously addressed from the perspective of the performers and the spectators, and be measured. We utilise these multiple levels of description: the first-person, phenomenological level of personal experiences, the third-perso…

Building natural science learning through youth science camps

2018

This study focuses on a youth science camp for pupils in sixth to ninth grades that is organized annually by the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. The main idea of the science camp is to learn to do guided inquiry in nature. The study investigates the significance of science camp for encouraging young participants to learn science and how the camp supports their learning. The research method used was a survey. Altogether, 47 youth participated in the camp in 2012 and 2013. The results show that the participants wanted to learn more about science than secondary school could offer, and science camp had a positive impact on their interest in science. It was possible to introduce important conc…

By accident or by design? : social enterprise leaders' stories of their career choice

2016

Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on tulkita ja kuvata yhteiskunnallisten yritysten johtaji-en uranvalintaa. Uranvalinta johtamisen parissa yhteiskunnallisissa yrityksissä on melko vähän tutkittu aihe, jonka vuoksi aiheeseen on syytä perehtyä lisää kokonaisvaltaisemman ymmärryksen saavuttamiseksi. Yhteiskunnallisen yrityksen käsite on myös vielä jokseenkin tuntematon Suomessa, ja niinpä tämä tutkimus pyrkii lisäämään tietoisuutta yhteiskunnallisista yrityksistä suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa. Tutkimuksen teoreettinen viitekehys yhdistelee näkemyksiä johtamisesta yhteiskunnallisissa yrityksissä sekä uranvalinnasta. Keskeisimmät esitellyt teoriat ovat Hollandin tyyppiteoria, Scheinin ura-ankkuriteo…

Emotionally loaded identity and agency in Finnish academic work

2020

This narrative study investigated identity, agency and emotions, amongst an under-researched academic group – those without PhDs with primary responsibility for teaching, who are also expected to do research. In this interview-based paper, we examine the experience of such Finnish academics in a research-intensive university. Thematic and then narrative approaches were employed. The findings demonstrated five narratives which indicated both balanced and tensioned relations as regards academic identity, with variable perceptions of agency and emotions embedded. The study contributes in two ways: first, it adds to the little that is known of the experiences of the aforementioned under-researc…

Women's narratives on fibromyalgia, functioning and life events

2012

‘Celebrating diverse motherhood’: physically disabled women’s counter-narratives to their stigmatised identity as mothers

2018

This study examined how disabled women negotiated their stigmatised identity as mothers by presenting counter-narratives to the culturally dominant narrative of disabled motherhood. Eleven Finnish physically disabled mothers were interviewed. The data were analysed by focusing on these counter-narratives, their linguistic features and their functions in the interviews. The disabled mothers produced four types of counter-narratives about their motherhood experiences: (1) celebrating diverse motherhood through individual coping; (2) performing motherhood through collaborative caring; (3) boosting motherhood through praising one’s children; and (4) normalising (disabled women’s) motherhood thr…

Disability, illness and physical activity: a (post)qualitative research

2019

This PhD thesis is an assemblage of papers addressing 1) disability, illness and physical activity; and 2) (post)qualitative inquiry. The thesis tackles the case of Patrick, a man living with poor prognostic cancer and paraplegia. Overall, it examines in-depth how narrative and material forces acted by shaping Patrick’s struggle of becoming, and which role physical activity played in his life post-diagnosis. Data was obtained from life-story interviews, participant-produced images in different formats and object interviews, as well as three years of informal interactions with Patrick. The selection of data collection techniques was subjected to ethical considerations meant to preserve Patri…

Narratives of professional development in a teachers’ creative writing group

2021

This paper explores teachers’ experiences of professional development in a creative writing group. The data was collected in a teachers’ creative writing group and consist of semi-structured interviews and creative writing assignments. Reflexive thematic analysis and narrative analysis were applied to compose a nonfiction piece that describes the teachers’ experiences of a ‘year of creative writing’. Within the nonfiction piece, four themes were presented as findings of the study: social aspects, personal and emotional aspects, writer identity aspects, and pedagogical aspects. The results suggest that utilising creative writing methods in qualitative research can raise otherwise hidden voic…

Parental agency and related emotions in the educational partnership

2017

This study investigated the understudied issue of parental agency and related emotions in the educational partnership in the context of Finnish early childhood education and care. We asked (i) what types of parental agency can be identified in the educational partnership and (ii) in what ways emotions are related to these types of agency. The narrative method was used to analyse the interview data of parents of children with difficulties in self-regulation. The findings indicate that parental agency in the educational partnership varied from proactive and confrontational to hindered. Typically, pleasant emotions were related to proactive and unpleasant emotions to confrontational parental a…