Cultural Education of Mixed Heritage Children by Single Mothers - Dissertation Example

Exploring how people form and articulate their identities through the personal narrative is something of an emerging field in academics, drawing upon diverse theoretical frameworks and incorporating cultural studies with such concepts as discourse analysis, psychoanalysis, gender relations, and so on (Singer, 2004, p. 438). Though each human is an individual of a certain age, appearance, and gender, we are also social beings who are defined by group associations, ethnicity and national affiliations, socioeconomic class, and past histories.

Finding and articulating self-meaning out of these disparate classes is not an easy task; an access point into this wonderful complexity comes through telling stories and listening to stories being told.The stories that are being told are put into perspective by the broad theoretical framework of narrative inquiry, which, in turn, gives insight into the women's narrative identities and their identities as a whole. The method that is used to unpack these individual's narrative identities is known as narrative interviewing.

Narrative inquiry is a way to gather information from informants in order to construct an idea of narrative identity. A person's narrative identity is “the unity of a person's life as it is experienced and articulated in stories that express that experience.” (Josselson, 1993, p. 7). This methodology has been used extensively by sociologists, ethnographers, and psychologists and is an excellent method in cultural studies as well (Rogers, 2007; Chase, 1995). Interviews that unpack an informant’s sense of self must necessarily be more than question and answer sessions, and while objectivity should be maintained, some interpretations are needed in the final analysis so the inquirer can reach conclusions (Clandinin and Rosiek, 2007; Rogers, 2007).

The interviewer invites the informant to tell a story rather than report on events, an important distinction that, when successful, creates a partnership between them.