Definition and BackgroundNarrative

Definition and Background
Narrative research has many forms, uses a variety of analytic practices,
and is rooted in different social and humanities disciplines (Daiute & ightfoot, 2004). “Narrative” might be the term assigned to any text or
discourse, or, it might be text used within the context of a mode of inquiry
in qualitative research (Chase, 2005), with a specific focus on the stories told
by individuals (Polkinghorne, 1995). As Pinnegar and Daynes (2006) suggest,
narrative can be both a method and the phenomenon of study. As a
method, it begins with the experiences as expressed in lived and told stories
of individuals. Writers have provided ways for analyzing and understanding
the stories lived and told. I will define it here as a specific type of qualitative
design in which “narrative is understood as a spoken or written text giving
an account of an event/action or series of events/actions, chronologically
connected” (Czarniawska, 2004, p. 17). The procedures for implementing
this research consist of focusing on studying one or two individuals, gathering
data through the collection of their stories, reporting individual experiences,
and chronologically ordering (or using life course stages) the meaning
of those experiences.