What role does narrative play in building teachers' knowledge? In this timely volume, foremost scholars in the field of education not only open, but they deepen the conversation about the uses of narrative in the construction of teachers' knowledge.

What is meant by narrative? How can one elicit a narrative or analyze it in research? How can narrative work best be facilitated among older adults? This is the only text to provide comprehensive information about the applications of narrative approaches in community and long-term settings, writing in the virtual world, and such individual work as journaling or poetry. The book explores the theories of narratives across many disciplines, research practices and analytical strategies, and applications in work with older adults. It has been written by a prominent researcher of the narrative construction of self in old age, whose studies have been funded by the NIH, the Brookdale Foundation, and the Alzheimerís Association, among other related achievements. The book brings together a unique blend of interdisciplinary perspectives and practices not found in other books on life stories, autobiography, and/or narrative approaches to understanding oneís experiences. Specifically, it focuses on the myriad theoretical underpinnings of narrative, provides a developmental history of narrative use in gerontology, and details various ways to use narratives in a variety of research settings. Each chapter includes step-by-step guides on who to analyze and report on, and how to write up narrative data. It also discusses ways to incorporate narratives in varied practice settings such as writing workshops in retirement communities, individual writing projects, and others. Key Features: Offers a ìhands onî research tool that guides the reader from theory to research to practice Describes the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of narrative with older adults Illustrates how narrative gerontology is fundamentally different in practice than narrative research with younger participants Addresses the breadth of available narrative methods and how to apply them in a research settings Designed for use in qualitative methods, service learning, and gerontological research courses.

This book directly addresses the multiplicity and complexity of narrative research by illustrating a variety of avenues to pursuing and publishing research that falls under the umbrella of narrative work. The chapters are drawn from a wide range of disciplines including education, literary studies, cultural studies, music and clinical studies. Each chapter considers a particular methodological issue or approach, illustrating how it was addressed in the course of the research. Each of the chapters concludes with a set of discussion exercises and a further reading list. The book offers a valuable resource for established researchers seeking to expand their methodological and theoretical repertoire, and for graduate students and researchers new to narrative methods.

This book provides a much needed up-to-date introduction to the topic of narrative inquiry – which has seen a growing interest in recent years. Narrative inquiry provides researchers with a framework through which they can investigate the ways humans experience the world depicted through their stories. The book looks at how this method can effectively be applied as a means of research in a range of contexts, including flexible, open and distance or workplace learning. It demonstrates the value and utility of employing narrative as a research tool in a range of teaching and learning settings and includes chapters on background, methodology and case studies to illustrate the application of narrative inquiry as a research method.

Using Narrative in Research by Christine Bold provides an accessible, easy-to-understand guide to the theory and practice of the use of narrative in research. Written with those new to narrative in mind, this book will enable readers to understand the origins of narrative traditions and to plan and carry out a narrative study of their own. Christine Bold′s book examines narrative approaches across a range of research contexts and disciplinary boundaries and will be of equal value to practitioners and academic students and researchers alike. Drawing on a range of real-life examples of narrative studies, Using Narrative in Research will enable readers to provide a sound justification for adopting a narrative-based approach and will help them to write about and write up narrative in research. This book examines: • How we design research projects with a narrative approach • Ethics • Narrative thinking • Collecting narrative data • Analysing narrative data • Representation in narrative analysis • Reporting and writing up narrative research.

Narrative research is an increasingly popular way of carrying outqualitative research by analysing the stories or experience. Thefindings of this type of qualitative research can be used toimprove nursing education, nursing practice and patient care and toexplore the experience of illness and the interaction betweenprofessionals. Narrative Research in Nursing provides acomprehensive yet straightforward introduction to narrativeresearch which examines the skills needed to perform narrativeinterviews, analyse data, and publish results and enables nurseresearchers to use the method systematically and rigorously. Narrative Research in Nursing examines the nature of narratives andtheir role in the development of nursing and health care.Strategies and procedures are identified, including thepracticalities of sampling, data collection, analysis andpresentation of findings. The authors discuss authenticity ofevidence and ethical issues while also exploring problems andpracticalities inherent in narrative inquiry and its dissemination.Narrative Research in Nursing is a valuable resource for nursesinterested in writing and publishing narrative research.

Offers practical illustrations from different disciplines and perspectives, showing how researchers from various backgrounds deal with narrative data.