Engaging with young people through narrative co-construction: Beyond categorisation

Abstract

This article provides a brief introduction to narrative and narrative research and reflects upon how a narrative methodology was used within research which sought to explore stories co-constructed between the researcher and two young people who were both looked after in local authority care and who had experienced exclusion from school. The rich and complex stories were interpreted to construct narratives which both resonated with and resisted narratives which dominate the research literature surrounding looked after children and young people. A narrative approach has much to offer the researching and practising educational psychologist by creating a space which enables children and young people’s voices to be heard and multiple, alternative realities to be created. This article has been contributed to by one of the young people who took part in the research, in order that we might both articulate our experiences of the process of this co-research.