34, Analysing narratives: the narrative construction of identity Cate Watson The rise of narrative in social and educational research has been led by a widespread recognition of the fundamental importance of narra- tive to the organization of human experience and our understanding of how lives are lived. Narrative integrates ways of knowing and being and is therefore intimately linked with questions of identity, currently the focus of much interest in social and educational research. The idea that identity is constructed through narrative is widely held. As Hinchman and Hinchman (2001, p. xviii) succinctly put it, ‘identity is that which emerges in and through narratives’. Indeed, to the extent that all narra- tives of personal experience involve the positioning of self in relation to the other, all may be said to be concerned with identity. The aim of this chapter, therefore, is to explore forms of narrative analysis that explicitly relate to the construction and performance of personal and professional identities considered as a narrative endeavour. However, while there may be broad consensus that identity is narratively constructed, there is perhaps less agreement about how this is accomplished or how it should be conceptualized. Tensions around the narrative analysis of identity therefore arise both from contrasting perspectives as to what counts as a narrative and the nature of identity, a concept which has undergone a radical shift in recent years from a unitary and enduring attribute of selfhood, to notions of identities as constructed, multiple and in flux (see Jenkins, 2008). Approaches to analysis turn on both these issues, and are further complicated by different philosophical positions adopted by researchers (for a useful discussion of this, see Smith and Sparkes, 2008a). WHAT IS A PERSONAL NARRATIVE? What counts as a personal narrative for analytical purposes? In an influen- tial piece of work Labov and Waletzky (1967[1997]) (see Cortazzi and Jin, Chapter 35, this volume, for an elaboration of this) defined fully formed oral narratives as consisting of: 460The narrative construction of identity 461 an abstract (a summary of what the story is about); orientation (setting the scene); complicating action (the narrative core — what happened); evaluation (the significance of the story to the narrator); resolution (how the situation pans out); coda (how the narrator moves out of the story-world and back into the here and now). Narratives of personal experience do not necessarily show all these features. Rather, they occupy a number of what Ochs and Capps (2001) refer to as ‘narrative dimensions and possibilities’ related to tellership, tellability, embeddedness, linearity and moral stance. The ‘default narra- tive’, Ochs and Capps say, tends to ‘exhibit a cluster of characteristics that fall at one end of these continua: one active teller, highly tellable account, relatively detached from surrounding talk and activity, linear temporal and causal organization and certain, constant moral stance’ (p. 20). Yet not all personal narratives can be characterized in this manner. Ochs and Capps (2001, p. 54) suggest that ‘narratives of personal experience cover a range of discourse formats, running from virtuoso verbal performances to more prosaic social exchanges . . . [personal narrative] resists delineation in terms of a set of fixed, generic defining features’. Perhaps a useful starting point is provided by Gubrium and Holstein (1997, p.146) who consider narratives of personal experience to be: accounts that offer some scheme, either implicitly or explicitly for organizing and understanding the relation of objects and events described. Narratives need not be full-blown stories with requisite internal structures, but may be short accounts that emerge within or across turns at ordinary conversation, in interviews or interrogations, in public documents, or in organizational records. While some might argue that such a broad definition of narrative carries the danger of rendering the term meaningless, it could equally be argued that for the social sciences an expansive definition of what counts as nar- rative confers significant advantages, opening up for analysis a range of verbal utterances and interactions and allowing analytics developed within other disciplines to be brought to bear to generate new insights. ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVES OR NARRATIVE ANALYSIS? Polkinghorne (1995) distinguishes between analysis of narratives and narrative analysis each of which, he argues (following Bruner, 1991),462 Handbook of qualitative research in education depends on different forms of cognition. Analysis of narrative involves ‘paradigmatic reasoning’ which results in ‘descriptions or themes that hold across stories or in taxonomies of types of stories, characters or settings’ (Polkinghorne, 1995, p.12). Analysis of narratives therefore starts with narratives and breaks them down into non-narrative form. Conversely, in narrative analysis ‘researchers collect descriptions of events and hap- penings and synthesize or configure them by means of a plot into a story or stories (for example, a history, case study or biographic episode)’ (Polkinghorne, 1995, p. 12) (see Tierney and Clemens, Chapter 19, this volume). More recently, Smith and Sparkes (2008b) have produced a typology ‘intended to tease and untangle some of the analytical threads and coils that make up the web of narrative analysis’ (p. 20) which distin- guishes between ‘story analysts’ and ‘storytellers’. Story analysts employ ‘analytical procedures, strategies and techniques in order to abstractly scrutinise, explain and think about its certain features’. Story analysts then report these findings as a ‘realist tale’ in the form of a research paper. For storytellers, on the other hand, ‘analysis is the story’. Storytellers use ‘creative analytic practices’ (Richardson and St Pierre, 2005), which might include fictional forms of writing, ethnodrama, autoethnography, poetry and so on to analyse and represent the findings of their research. In prac- tice, there may be considerable blurring between what story analysts and storytellers do. Perhaps the key aspect that separates Polkinghorne from Smith and Sparkes is the acknowledgement by the latter that in both the analysis of narratives and narrative analysis what is produced is another narrative — and this highlights one of the complicating aspects of narrative research in that narrative is both the phenomenon or process being studied and the methodological approach adopted for analysis (and furthermore the means of representation of the research findings) — to paraphrase a well-known expression, it’s narratives all the way down. EXPLORING THE NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY From all this it will be readily appreciated that analysing narratives is a complex practice for which no definitive guidance can be given. This freedom can be discomfiting, and not just for the beginning researcher. When first confronted with, for example, a lengthy recording or transcript of an interview it is a fairly common experience to wonder what on earth to actually do with it. A first reading may not reveal anything of interest ~ you begin to wonder if it can be analysed as narrative at all. Gradually, as you become immersed in the data meanings emerge, an analyticalThe narrative construction of identity 463 approach suggests itself and takes you forward. But this is not to say that a narrative contains one meaning or can be subject to a ‘correct’ reading. Narrative analysis is about interpretation — as much about the construc- tion of a persuasive narrative for your readers as the one you set out to analyse. When approaching narrative data then what is required is not slavish adherence to a rubric but an open, yet attentive approach, sensitive to nuance, which is nonetheless informed by a number of principles. First and foremost of these perhaps is the key point that narratives should not be regarded as providing unmediated access to ‘reality’, Narratives are artful constructions and analysis must be concerned with both the content of the narrative and the form of its construction. For the narrative scholar, Riessman and Quinney (2005, p. 393) write, there must be attention to how the facts got assembled that way. For whom was this story constructed, how was it made, and for what purpose? What cultural resources does it draw on ~ take for granted? What does it accomplish? Are there gaps and inconsistencies that might suggest alternative counter-narratives? This focus on the form and function of narrative is a key factor separat- ing narrative research from other forms of qualitative inquiry such as grounded theory. Analysing narratives is not about decontextualizing data but about treating the narrative as a (more or less) coherent whole. Riessman (1997, p.157) talks about the ‘tyranny’ of narrative arguing that ‘the term has come to mean anything and everything’. But there is another sense in which we can talk about the tyranny of narrative. In some quarters, narrative has become almost revered as an empowering practice that can be used by the weak against the strong (the genre of narrative writing known as ‘testimonio’ is predicated on this idea, for example, see Beverley, 2005). While there is no doubt that narratives do have the power to subvert social norms, there is another side to narrative. A darker side. Narrative can equally be viewed as a form of violence done to experience, ‘by constructing narratives we not only ultimately erase part of our lived experience but also impose a particular way of thinking about experience’ (Hendry, 2007, p. 491). In this view narration is an ideological process, and this is so both for the research participant, whose narratives of per- sonal experience we are keen to exploit, but also for the research narratives that we construct in response. As Currie (1998) says, we learn to narrate from the outside. Narratives teach us how to conceive of ourselves and it is important to remain reflexively alert to this while conducting analyses in order to be aware of the socio-cultural constraints within which narration occurs. Neither should we assume that in eliciting narratives from our research participants, for example, in the narrative research interview, that we are464 Handbook of qualitative research in education going to arrive at shared understandings. Scheurich (1995, p. 243) warns that: Interview interactions do not have some essential, teleological tendency toward an ideal of ‘joint construction of meaning’ . . . Instead, interactions and meanings are a shifting carnival of ambiguous complexity, a moving feast of differences interrupting differences, Easy assumptions of empathy with our research participants are equally to be avoided as both complacent in research terms and, in the lack of acknowledgement of difference between ourselves and our research par- ticipants, unethical in practice (Watson, 2009a). Indeed, it is often in the acknowledgement of difference, the gap between ourselves and our participants, that analysis gains a purchase. We may be engaged in ‘co- construction’ of the narrative, but this does not necessarily imply shared meanings. THREE APPROACHES TO ANALYSING NARRATIVES OF IDENTITY To give an idea of the range of possible approaches to analysis I now give three examples illustrating the different ways in which narratives can be elicited and what can be done with them. Space precludes a lengthy dis- cussion of the decisions regarding transcription, though it must be under- stood that this stage is a vital part of the analysis. Edward Mishler’s (1991) paper remains a classic in this regard and Lapadat (2000) and Riessman (2008) also present useful discussions. ‘Teachers’ Professional Identities: A ‘Big’ Story My first example is drawn from a semi-structured interview, lasting some three hours, with an experienced teacher, who I referred to as Dan, the purpose of which was to elicit narratives of practice in order to analyse dimensions of personal and professional identity (Watson, 2006a). The overarching question the research aimed to answer was: who am I asa teacher and how did I get that way? The analysis focused on sections of the transcript which, though they did not necessarily conform entirely to ‘fully formed” stories as defined by Labov and Waletzky (1967[1997]), were nonetheless bounded and ‘story-like’, that is, told of something that happened and made a point in relation to Dan’s practice. The analysis was concerned both with the content of the stories and their construction in order to show how they contributed to Dan’s ‘identity work’. They wereThe narrative construction of identity 465 not analysed therefore as representing some ‘reality’ in the sense that they necessarily tell what ‘really happened’ (this has been an enduring, though misguided, criticism of narrative research considered from a positivist viewpoint). Rather they have to be analysed as narratives that Dan draws on to position himself, other staff and his pupils, within a framework of institutional and wider educational and social discourses. While transcribing the interview I listened to Dan’s voice, over and over until I could hear his voice in my head when I read the transcript. Developing this level of familiarity with the data is for me an essential part of this kind of analysis, though it is undeniably time-consuming. | also sent him the transcript, though this raises some important methodologi- cal and ethical issues. For example, if you do this, do you ‘clean up’ the transcript removing the ums, ers and “dialect respellings’ that can seem patronising and offend the interviewee? (Preston (1985) refers to this as ‘Li'l Abner syndrome’.) You need also to be clear about your attitude to changes — do you allow the participant to go beyond checking for accuracy of transcription? Your answers to these kinds of questions will depend on a number of factors including the aim of your research, your relation- ship with the participants, their role in the research and so on. (Gready (2008) discusses the methodological and ethical issues associated with ‘ownership’ of narratives.) One theme that emerged very strongly from the interview with Dan was how he positioned himself as different to the other teachers. In the biographical information he provided (and which formed the basis for another paper, see Watson, 2009b), it seemed clear that he grounded these claims of difference in his early childhood experiences of school failure which he narratively constructed as providing a motive for becoming a teacher, that is, to give his pupils a better experience than he had himself. This is an example of the way in which we learn, to read time backwards, rewriting our narratives to make sense of the present (Ricoeur, 1981). A number of the stories I identified in the transcript related to this positioning of self as different and as subversive within the system. For example, Orientation: — Aye then, unorthodox methods of discipline Abstract: A boy at the door (the one that I was telling you about that was involved with this attempted murder) and he’s a bit of a hard nut y’know Complicating action: and he’s at the door, blethering to someone else and not going into the classroom and blocking the room466 Handbook of qualitative research in education and I do things that I’m not supposed to, and I said ‘Sit down or I'll kiss you’ You've never seen a pupil head for his seat .. Evaluation: It was funny, y’know. This is the form in which the story is presented in the paper. It conforms quite well to the fully formed story of Labov and Waletzky (I have indi- cated the constituent parts here, though others may not agree with the designations I have given). The transcription was intended to be quite naturalistic, bringing out the rhythm of the story by emphasizing the repetition but looking back, I wonder at some of the decisions I came to. I drew on this story in another paper and transcribed it rather differently, presenting it as a poem of three stanzas (Watson, 2006b). As I wrote in the paper, this story shows the construction and perform- ance of identity in the material practices of teacher and taught. It deals with the management and control of clearly, a very deviant pupil (itself a defining aspect of teacher professional identity) and indicates the ‘unor- thodox’ methods through which Dan positions himself as subversive. Overall, the stories analysed gave an insight into how Dan constructed himself as a teacher in and through his narratives of practice. What is presented in this paper can be considered, in Bamberg’s terms, to be the analysis of a ‘big story’. “Big Stories’ are typically stories that are elicited in interview situations, either for the purpose to create research data or to do therapy — stories in which speakers are asked to retrospect on particular life-determining episodes or on their lives as a whole, and tie together events into episodes and episodes into a life story, so that something like ‘a life” can come ‘to existence’. (Bamberg, 2006, p. 64) The formal interview situation encouraged a retrospective reflection on Dan’s teaching career, and although in places there are clear moments of co-construction of dialogue in the interview, it seems reasonable to assume that many of the ‘stories’ have been rehearsed and polished — the ‘unorthodox methods of discipline’ story has probably been told many times. In addition, the autobiographical elements conform to certain cultural storylines — the storying of self as ‘wanting to give pupils a better experience’ is a fairly common one among teachers. It is a variant of the ‘redemption narrative’ in which, through suffering something better emerges, and through which something is given back to society, a potent narrative in Western culture (McAdams, 2005). To a certain extent, the traditional semi-structured interview encourages this kind of response. There are few other social situations when people get to tell long stories without interruption. A completely different kind ofThe narrative construction of identity 467 narrative emerges from a more conversational interaction, as my second example indicates. Developing Professional Competence — A ‘Small Story’ This analysis draws on what might be termed a vicarious interview between two student teachers ~ who I called Andrea and Jim ~ about their recent school experience placement (see Watson, 2007). This was part of a study of the development of professional identities in beginning teachers. These two students were part of a larger cohort I recruited and interviewed as a group several times over the course of their one-year teaching diploma. However, on this particular occasion only Andrea and Jim were able to come along — and due to another engagement I couldn’t be there either. They agreed to have a conversation around a few starter questions I gave them and to record it. (Although I wasn’t present, it would be a mistake to assume that the participants were unaware of my vicarious presence and the likely influence this had — see Currie and Kelly, Chapter 29, this volume, and the ‘speaker’s intended audience’). The analysis centres on what Bamberg (2006, p. 71) refers to as a ‘small story’. Small stories are most often about very mundane things and everyday occurrences, often even not particularly interesting or tellable; stories that seem to pop up, not neces- sarily even recognized as stories, and quickly forgotten; nothing permanent or of particular importance — so it seems. In this example, the story is told by Andrea about a teacher at the school in which she had completed her second placement. Andrea refers to this teacher as ‘a youngster’ and the focus of the story is this teacher’s inability to control his classes, even the ‘Higher’ class (in Scotland ‘Highers’ are the most advanced exams taken in secondary schools). Part of the transcript is reproduced here to indicate what I mean by a ‘small story’ and to show the co-construction of the narrative (in this transcription I have removed a lot of the ums and erms and added conventional punctuation to render the transcript more readable): A: .. .There was also a youngster who I imagine he’d done a maths degree but I imagine he’d gone into teaching straight after, but he J: or like a lot of people on our course where they’ve done one or two years ‘A: doing something J: doing [A: yeah] little things. A: Well trouble is, well trouble is, he had got himself into a right state. He only lasted two weeks after I got there. I was taking his Higher class468 Handbook of qualitative research in education but he was very, very tired all the time, and he left after those two weeks, got himself signed off two weeks, got himself signed off for another two weeks and now he’s signed off for another eight weeks. His Higher class [laughing] are of the opinion that he’s having a nervous breakdown and I think probably, y’know could well be the case. J: Is he newly qualified or what? A: I wasn’t, well I dunno, I think this was his first Higher class so he’s maybe been teaching a couple of years [J: uh huh] but I mean he’s a young- ster, but he was just very, very stressed about everything even taking the Higher class and the Higher class were a nice group of kids y’know J: If you can get the maths sorted in your head then teaching a Higher class is A: isno bother, I mean I didn’t have any problems with them and I J: it’s not like teaching 5th year Intermediate 2 A: [part of transcript deleted] and they never really gave me any prob- lems whatsoever. If I asked them y’know to be quiet they generally were, y’know no nonsense whatsoever, but y’know he was very frenetic and I think some of the problem is some of the bottom sets are horrendous to have to deal with. It’s quite aggressive in the classroom, y’know I met his 4th year and they were dire y’know [part of transcript deleted] Bamberg (for example, Bamberg, 2003, 2004a, 2004b; Bamberg and Georgakopoulou, 2008) has developed ‘positioning analysis’ as a means to analyse these small stories produced through talk-in-interaction. The approach draws on Davies and Harré’s (1990) notion of ‘positioning’ which they define as ‘the discursive process whereby selves are located in conversations as observably and subjectively coherent participants in jointly produced story-lines’ (Davies and Harré, 1990, p. 48). Positioning analysis operates at three levels, which move progres- sively from the localized context of the talk to broader socio-cultural levels of discourse, to analyse the identity claims made by participants in conversation. Briefly, Level 1 positioning analyses how the characters are established within the story and answers the questions: ‘What is this story about?’ and ‘Who are the characters and why are they positioned this way?” Level 2 examines the question of what the narrator is trying to accomplish with the story, the narrative strategies and the interactional effects: ‘Why is it told this way” ‘Why here and why now?’ While Level 3 draws together the analysis to provide an answer to the question: ‘Who am I vis-A-vis what society says I should be?’ A claim which can transcend the current local context. By doing this, Bamberg (2004b, p. 367) argues, ‘we are better situated to make assumptions about the ideological master narratives within which the speakers are positioning a sense of self”, thatThe narrative construction of identity 469 is, the approach assumes an agentive positioning of self within discousse, while recognizing that such agency arises within the discursive framework in which subjects are positioned. My analysis looked at the wap Andrea, as nacratac, used the SOry AdOuL ‘the youngster’ to make claims for her own developing professional iden- tity. In effect, Andrea constructs and performs her own identity through this ‘small story’, an ephemeral, conversational story produced jointly with Jim. Through this story Andrea and Jim are able to make claims for their own developing competence as teachers in three areas key to a teacher’s professional identity: pedagogical expertise, subject expertise and discipline. The transcript can be analysed as Jim and Andrea ‘doing’ identity, constructing themselves as competent teachers through their interactional talk. In addition, the language used by them can be analysed in terms of how they are enculturated into the profession, for example, in the language that equates ability with niceness (‘the Higher class were a nice group of kids’) and lack of ability with deviance (‘bottom sets are horrendous to have to deal with’). Ability therefore becomes an issue of morality in schools. Positioning analysis can therefore link talk-in- interaction with wider socio-cultural discourses. Positioning analysis has been criticized for placing too much emphasis on these ephemeral narratives, in effect making them do too much in terms of identity. Thorne (2004) and Hall (2004) both question the relevance to identity of jointly produced small storylines. While to some extent Bamberg and his critics seem to approach the question of significance in relation to identity from two distinct theoretical groundings which may render the meanings they attach to these ideas incommensurable, nonetheless, it is pertinent to question not only the significance of these locally produced identities, but within the context of an ephemeral and jointly constructed narrative, the salience for whom. In response to this Bell (2009) has introduced the concept of the ‘middle story’ operating between the autobiographical account and the conversational remark which focuses on the recent past and acts as a bridge, drawing together meanings taken from small stories and starting a process of reflective syn- thesis. My own analysis, though it focused on a single story co-constructed by Jim and Andrea, was informed by interviews conducted over the course ofa year and I was therefore in a better position to judge the salience of the identities produced in this single exchange. Being a Storyteller — Developing Fictional Narratives My final example is, in Smith and Sparkes’s (2008b) terms, in storyteller mode. The research concerned the construction and performance of470 Handbook of qualitative research in education professional identities of teachers and members of staff of an agency offer- ing therapeutic support services located within schools (Watson, 2012). The aim of the research was to examine interagency/interprofessional working in schools through a narrative analysis of identities mobilized by staff within the two organizations. Unlike the previous examples, in this instance the analysis was presented as a fictionalized ‘case study’ of inter- professional working in a school. For this, I drew very closely on the dia- logue actually spoken by the interviewees (though in some cases this was altered to provide greater anonymity), but their words were condensed and juxtaposed so as to highlight particular aspects of the performance of identity and the ‘individuals’ presented were all fictional characters, amalgamations of the actual interviewees. This approach did not aim at the transparent representation of data (itself a fiction) but at its re- presentation in such a way as to create ‘narrative truths’. Clough (2002), defending such fictionalizations in educational research says, ‘as a means of educational report, stories can provide a means by which those truths, which cannot be otherwise told, are uncovered’ (p. 8). Fictionalizations confer anonymity as well as offering researchers ‘the opportunity to import fragments of data from various real events in order to speak to the heart of social consciousness’ (p. 8). In this paper however a key aim of the representation was to construct a satirical narrative as a means to high- light the ways in which, within the ambiguous embrace of the organiza- tion, teachers, other professionals and their respective managers construct and mobilize their identities. What emerged very clearly from the interviews was how members of both organizations positioned themselves in relation to the other. Thus, while ostensibly praising the work carried out by the therapeutic support agency, the teachers signalled their own professional commitment by high- lighting the ‘part-time’ nature of the support workers, as in this extract: Interviewer: So how helpful have you found the support being offered? Teacher 1: It’s great. Having the support workers here has just become part of the whole structure of the day, well, not the day exactly, because they are not here every day. Similarly, the support workers constructed their own concerns with the ‘whole child’ by positioning the teachers as only interested in the child’s behaviour and academic achievement: Support Worker 1: One of the challenges is working in a therapeutic way within an educational setting because there are two obviously really different aims going on. And it needn't be a conflict, | mean because in these schools they are very kind of open to us and they are really kind of welcoming about it but nev- ertheless we have got a completely different goal. It’s not about good behaviourThe narrative construction of identity 471 you know and then going back to the classroom where it’s very much about being good and doing things right and achieving, So there is a real conilict. What also emerged from the interviews was the way in which the tensions and frustrations of the teachers and support workers were smoothed over by senior management, and how the systems and structures imposed by the organizations contributed to the difficulties experienced by both groups of staff. The fictional narrative aimed to represent this state of affairs and to bring it out by means of satire. The ‘case study’ presented was the analysis, with no further interpretation added. Sparkes (1997, p. 33) says, of such fictional narratives, ‘The end result is a powerful story that has the potential to provoke multiple interpretations and responses from readers who differ in their positioning to the story provided.” For some, fictionalization of research data is a step too far raising difli- cult questions around notions of validity (see, for example, Bridges, 2003). However, Barone (2007, p. 466) defends the practice arguing that ‘our aim as researcher-storytellers is not to seek certainty about correct perspec- tives on educational phenomena but to raise significant questions about prevailing policy and practice that enrich an ongoing conversation’. Eisner (1997) too argues that such alternative forms of representation serve as a means to ‘enlarge understanding’ and that this is a legitimate aim of research. (See Watson (2011) for a discussion of the use of fiction in social and educational research.) CONCLUSION The three analyses presented in this chapter draw on narrative in very different ways. In the first two examples my role was as a ‘story analyst’, in the first case looking at an individual’s account of their practice; in the second examining the conversational talk between two beginning teachers. In the final example I adopt the ‘storyteller’ stance, crafting a narrative from interview data. What I have presented is by no means intended to be exhaustive, rather Ihave tried to indicate the possibilities provided by narrative in research on identities. While each is very different a common thread emerges. Notable across the three stories I tell is the positioning of self in relation to the other. In effect, we narratively construct the other and through this construction we establish claims for our own identities. We do this whether we draw on events from the distant past or more recently, and whether we are being asked to reflect on our lives as a whole or whether we are ‘doing identity’ in our mundane and everyday conversations.472 Handbook of qualitative research in education By presenting these different analyses I hope to have opened up a dialogue around the possibilities presented by narrative as a means to research identities. It has often been said that we are as a species ‘Homo Sabulans’, the teller of stories, it is part of our cognitive repertoire. But we are not just the tellers of narratives, rather we are, as Currie (1998, p.2) says, ‘interpreters’ of narrative too, looking for meanings and endlessly generating our own research narratives in response to those told us by our participants. In conclusion, the turn to narrative provides us with a rich and creative resource which has transformed, and will continue to trans- form, the research landscape. REFERENCES Bamberg, M. (2003), ‘Positioning with Davie Hogan. Stories, tellings and identities’ in C. Daiute (ed.), Narrative analysis: Studying the Development of Individuals in Society, London: Sage, pp. 135. Bamberg, M. (2004a), ‘Narrative, discourse and identities’, in J.C. Meister (ed.), Narratology Beyond Literary Criticism, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 213-37. Bamberg, M. (2004b), ‘We are young, responsible and male, Form and function of “slut- bashing” in the identity constructions in 15-year-old males’, Human Development, 41 (6), 331-53. Bamberg, M. (2006), ‘Biographic-narrative research, quo vadis. A critical review of “big stories” from the perspective of “small stories”, in K. Milnes, C. Horrocks, N. Kelly, B Roberts and D. Robinson (eds), Narrative, Memory and Knowledge: Representations, Aesthetics and Contexts, Huddersfield: University of Huddersfield Press, pp. 63-79. Bamberg, M. and Georgakopoulou, A. (2008), ‘Small stories as a new perspective in narra- tive and identity analysis’, Text and Talk, 28 (3), 377-96, Barone, T. (2007), “A return to the gold standard? Questioning the future of narrative con- struction as educational research’, Qualitative Inquiry, 13 (4), 454~70. Bell, N.J. (2009), ‘Making connections: considering the dynamics of narrative stability from arelational approach’, Narrative Inquiry, 19 (2), 280-305. Beverley, J. (2005), ‘Testimonio, subalternity, and narrative authority’, in N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (eds), Handhook of Qualitative Research, 3rd edn, London: Sage, pp. 547-58. Bridges, D. (2003), Fiction Written Under Oath?: Essays in Philosophy and Educational Research, Dordrecht: Springer. Bruner, J. (1991), “The narrative construction of reality’, Critical Inquiry, 18 (1), 1-21 Clough, P. (2002), Narratives and Fictions in Educational Research, Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Currie, M. (1998), Postmodern Narrative Theory, London: Macmillan Press. Davies, B. and Harré, R. (1990), ‘Positioning: the discursive production of selves’, Journalfor the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20 (1), 43-63, Eisner, E.W. (1997), “The promise and perils of alternative forms of data representation’, Educational Researcher, 26(6), 4-10. Gready, P. (2008), ‘The public life of narratives: ethics, politics, methods’, in M. Andrews, C Squires and M. Tamboukou (eds), Doing Narrative Research, London: Sage, pp. 137-50. Gubrium, J.F. and Holstein, J.A. (1997), The New Language of Qualitative Method, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Hall, R. 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