Stories Approach Research Articles

Social Skills Development for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders in Inclusive Classrooms by Social Stories Approach

The research aimed to employ the social story approach to enhance the social skills of students with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), particularly those in the high-functioning category, within a full inclusion setting. Despite their enrollment in an inclusive classroom, these students encountered challenges related to social skills, including the recognition of emotional expressions, interactions with peers, appropriate behavior in societal settings, collaboration with others, and adherence to social norms. The research utilized the Individual Implementation Plan (IIP) for social stories and a social skill's observation form tailored for students with ASDs. This study employed a single-subject across behaviors, or an A1-B-A2 design, dividing the intervention into three stages: the initial baseline (A1), the subsequent treatment phase (B), and the final withdrawal or post-trial period (A2). The findings indicated that following the implementation of social stories, students with ASDs in inclusive classrooms exhibited significant improvements in recognizing others' emotions and expressions, engaging in social interactions, demonstrating appropriate behavior in various societal contexts, collaborating effectively with peers, and adhering to social rules. Notably, these advancements were most pronounced during the withdrawal or post-trial period (A2).

Boosting Critical Thinking Skills: Applying the Dilemma Stories Approach with the 5E Learning Cycle in Buffer Subject Education

This study explores the impact of the Dilemmas approach, rooted in transformative learning, on enhancing critical thinking skills in buffer chemistry subjects among high school students. Employing a mixed-methods design and purposive sampling, the research involved 34 eleventh-grade students from SMAN 1 Surakarta. The implementation of dilemma stories integrated with a 5E learning cycle was scrutinized using various data collection methods, including observations, student reflective journals, pretest-posttest assessments, the Constructivist Chemistry Values Learning Environment Survey (CCVLES), and interviews. Observations assessed the application of the dilemma stories and the 5E learning cycle. Pretest-posttest evaluations measured changes in students' critical thinking abilities, while reflective journals and CCVLES questionnaires captured students' perceptions of their critical thinking skills and their learning experiences. Interviews were conducted to validate the findings from the tests, journals, and questionnaires. Data analysis involved reduction, display, and conclusion-drawing techniques. The findings suggest that the Dilemmas approach significantly fosters students' ability to think critically and apply chemical concepts practically. This was evidenced by students' analyses of dilemma stories and responses in interviews, CCVLES questionnaires, and reflective journals, indicating a deeper engagement with and understanding of the subject matter through this innovative learning strategy.

Narrative Analysis in English Language Teachers’ Professional Identity Research: A Review

Amidst the escalating emergence of generic methodological articles on narrative inquiry, this article critically reviews diff erent narrative analysis approaches and their application in English language teachers’ professional identity research. For this purpose, we reviewed currently available methodological books and articles on narrative inquiry in general and narrative analysis in particular. Additionally, we reviewed twenty purposively selected empirical articles published since 2015 thatemployed narrative inquiry to explore English teachers’ professional identities. A review of methodological articles revealed that the narrative analysis and analysis of narrative dichotomy are blurred as a certain level of interpretation occurs during the co-construction of stories, transcribing, translating, restorying, and fi nally, the consumption of the reports by the readers. Consequently, many researchers have considered paradigmatic analysis as the first step of narrative analysis. In contrast, research practices showed that the interpretation of stories begins only after story generation. Besides, amongst diff erent narrative analysis approaches, positioning analysis underscores how tellers represent themselves through narratives, whereas the small story approach of Barkhuizen accentuates analyzing content and context; however, narrative forms and linguistic features and their motives are rarely investigated. Though the small stories approach of Georgakopoulou (2007) advocates explicitly for considering ways of telling (linguistic features and communicative how), it is rarely evident in practice. This article, therefore, identifies a need for a comprehensive narrative analysis approach that considers what (content), where and when (context), how (form), and who and why (agency and discourse) of the story.

Clients’ and social workers’ stories about discretion in social work with persons with disabilities

This study explores discretion in social work with persons with disabilities. By drawing on a narrative social work approach, the study acknowledges narratives crucial for conducting social work. The research question was as follows: How do persons with disabilities as clients and social workers as professionals consider discretion and its consequences? The data consisted of clients’ and social workers’ written accounts about discretion and were analysed by deploying narrative inquiry with small stories approach. The grand narrative was about getting adequate services through appropriate discretion. Three small stories about everyday life, in/equality and the economy were told against the grand narrative. The study argues that discretion in social work with persons with disabilities is constructed through the available narrative resources.

‘No more secrets, it’s over!’: small stories about late adoption disclosure of Chilean adults

ABSTRACT Today there is broad consensus that adoptive parents should initiate open communication early and continue talking about adoption throughout their children’s lives. However, a significant group of adopted adults do not know their adoptive origin and learn about it late in their lives, especially in Latin American countries where closed adoption systems dominate. Within a broader narrative study carried out in Chile, in this article we analyse a subset of 14 narrative interviews of people adopted domestically who underwent processes of late adoption disclosure. We draw from a small stories approach (Georgakopoulou, 2015) and identify a narrative structure for accidental and late disclosure experiences. We focus on three dimensions of the communicative experience narrated by participants: (1) the spatio-temporal situatedness of disclosure, (2) the construction of family emotions, and (3) the issue of the ‘right age for disclosure’. Focusing on these dimensions is particularly relevant because the narratives of adult Chilean adoptees seem to depart significantly from current master narratives on how families should talk about adoption. Finally, we discuss our findings in relation to adoptive identity construction processes, current debates regarding communication in adoptive families and origin search processes, and the implications for specialized professional interventions in this area.

School Dynamics and Their Role in the Educational Trajectories of At-Risk Students

<p style="text-align:justify">Numerous events occur in students' educational trajectories that are linked to school success. Some of these events are related to school-related factors. Moreover, these factors alter the quality of students' engagement, generating the risk of dropping out of school. The objective of this research has been to explore, compare and understand the different events that occur in the school trajectories of at-risk youths that are related to the existing dynamics in schools. In order to achieve this objective, a narrative research based on the life stories approach was developed. For the reconstruction of the stories, the technique of in-depth interviews and mixed data analysis was used, by means of different analysis techniques. The main conclusions reached after the research have been highly relevant for studies on educational trajectories of at-risk youth. The different factors associated with schools affect the trajectory and involvement of students. There are certain dynamics that have a greater presence in some stages or others, however, all of them can positively or negatively affect the quality of student engagement. Finally, it is shown that the key lies in the way in which the different dynamics of schools develop, i.e., how the dynamics associated with certain factors develop.</p>

Assessment for learning within Australia's Early Years Learning Framework: What is the place of Learning Stories?

Early childhood assessment in Australia is guided by Australia's Early Years Learning Framework and a ‘storied’ approach. This article argues that Australia's policy and practice discourses of assessment in early childhood education lack clarity. The article situates early childhood assessment practice within Australia's curriculum, policy and regulatory context. Literature regarding Learning Stories assessment as a dominant discourse is presented to illustrate the ‘borrowed’ and underdeveloped nature of Australia's storied approach. Data is drawn on to provide insight into two educators’ assessment practices. The analysis suggests that storied assessment is being conflated with the Learning Stories approach within a wider practice of assessment eclecticism, whereby educators are taking a ‘grass-roots’ approach to assessment and doing ‘what works’. The article argues for urgent attention to concepts of assessment in the scheduled update of the Early Years Learning Framework.

The stories that tell us: smartphones and discursive reconstitution of transnational intimacy among migrant mothers

The growing phenomenon of transnational families where the mothers work abroad has reinvigorated the debate on the fluidity of contemporary families. Family is no longer defined as household-bound, and family obligations are constantly negotiated. Research shows migrant mothers utilize communication technologies, most recently smartphones, to (re)constitute family intimacy and maternal identity from afar through everyday family practices. However, most research has focused on the material reconfiguration of family practices, essentially sidelining the discursive workings of intimacy and identity via mobile media. To address this gap, this ethnographic study draws on the narrative theories, particularly the small stories approach, to examine the narratives of Indonesian mothers in Hong Kong as embedded in their smartphone communication. The participant observation and narrative interviews with 25 migrant mothers revealed that maternal storytelling on smartphones is routine, eclectic, and personalized. These enable migrant mothers to craft and tell family stories to (1) rationalize distance and (2) bolster family resilience. This article concludes by reflecting upon the authorial privilege in constructing family narratives on mobile media. The implications on our understanding of the contextualizing power of narrative and power dynamics underlying mediated family communication are discussed.

Omaa paikkaa etsimässä: edistyneisyys suomea toisena kielenään puhuvien kokemana

This article takes up a central question of Kirsti Siitonen’s dissertation – how advancedness in Finnish as a second language can be characterized – and investigates it from the perspective of research terminology as well as the lived experience of language users. We first discuss how and with what implications advanced learners of Finnish have been referred to in the research literature, i.e. whether they have been regarded as learners, speakers or other kinds of language users. Applying a small stories approach to interview data from different research projects, we then explore what advancedness means to such language users themselves. We conclude that advanced learners navigate a complex sociolinguistic context in which their place is not self-evident. Insights into their experiences contribute to debates about the migration – or recruitment – of highly educated professionals who need very advanced Finnish skills in order to work in their field in Finland.

‘I’ll always have black hair’ – challenging raciolinguistic ideologies in Finnish schools

ABSTRACT This article discusses raciolinguistic ideologies in the Finnish educational context. Ethnographic interviews and observational data gathered during 2015–2020 from two young males who came to Finland from the Middle-East in autumn 2015 as unaccompanied minors were analysed applying the small stories approach. The research questions were: 1) What kinds of racializing discourses are circulated, negotiated, and resisted in the participants’ self- and other positionings? 2) How is valuation of their language and literacy skills and participation in education reflected in these positionings? Critical linguistic ethnography was used to identify the racializing discourses. The results indicate that structural raciolinguistic ideologies repeatedly impacted the participants’ educational paths: notwithstanding their good command of Finnish they may have been judged as deficient language users, weakening their chances of equal participation in classroom interaction and access to further studies or practical training. However, outside the educational context, they may successfully deploy their multilingual repertoires for networking and entrepreneurship. While intersecting factors such as race, gender, or religion influence participation, they are treated as language issues in a politically correct but vague way. This calls for a critical discussion of how students’ struggles with participation should be situated within broader structural biases.

Gestures of closure: A small stories approach to museumgoers' texts

AbstractMuseums are familiar public institutions whose primary mode of mediation is narration. They are geared toward narrating collective stories that are authoritative, linear, and grand in scope. Yet with the historical turn museums have recently taken from collection-centered to audience-centered institutions – coupled with a participatory mode of mediation – more than ever museumgoers are now invited to participate in these grand narrations. This article examines the institutional interaction between museums and museumgoers, and the texts that the latter produce in situ. It analyzes over 3000 texts that visitors wrote at the Florida Holocaust Museum, between 2012 and 2015. It employs the “small stories” framework to explore the interactional narrative structure and features within which museumgoers' written comments are elicited and displayed in museums. The analysis highlights the narrative functions and authorial roles that museumgoers are ascribed institutionally, and whether and how they discursively occupy them. Three main narrative strategies of/for participation are discerned, through which museumgoers variously perform gestures of closure of their visit. These narrative gestures index ways, in which visitors signal the approaching end of the museum's narration, employing diverse discursive resources, while adding a coda or a resolution to the institutional narrative.

Narrative practices in debt collection encounters

AbstractDrawing on a corpus of 100 authentic telephone-mediated interactions from a British credit union, this paper is the first to examine narrative practices in debt collection encounters. It demonstrates that the credit union’s debt collector routinely invites and supports indebted individuals’ narratives using alignment and affiliation. Through a small stories approach, the paper therefore highlights that an organisation’s core values and principles can be seen “in action” in the ways that a professional orients to lay-people’s stories in professional-lay discourse. In this case, the collector’s narrative practices are emblematic of the credit union’s consciously ethical, responsible, and debtor-centric approach to collecting debt. The analysis also shows that indebted individuals perform important interactive work through their narrative accounts in terms of mitigating responsibility for their debt, constructing blameless and acceptable identities, and implicitly encouraging (or explicitly instructing) the collector to affiliate with their stance.

Mixed methods on Instagram research: Methodological challenges in data analysis and visualization

In this article, we will present our insights on key methodological challenges emerged from the Selfiestories project, focused on selfies as personal narratives on Instagram. In this research, we approached the selfie practice in the context of user’s personal narratives (Georgakopoulou, 2016, From narrating the self to posting self(ies): A small stories approach to selfies. Open Linguistics 2(1): 300–317.) embedded in the everyday. We opted for a mixed methodology (Creswell and Creswell, 2017) resonating on the notion of remix (Markham, 2013, Remix cultures, remix methods: Reframing qualitative inquiry for social media contexts. In: Denzin N and Giardina M (eds) Global Dimensions of Qualitative Inquiry. pp. 63–81.), thus combining fieldwork and ethnographic techniques with quantitative data obtained through an Instagram data extractor. This approach proved to be challenging in the process of establishing a dialogue between data sets of different nature. At this stage, we considered visualization as a valuable technique for analysis and communication, particularly in those case studies where fieldwork and data extraction from Instagram were conducted simultaneously. Decisions made regarding visualization processes posed different challenges regarding the intermingling of qualitative and quantitative data and the layout of our results. After a contextualization of our research and methodology, we will analyze the challenges and limitations of visualizations in our research. Taking into account the time-based dimension of personal narratives in Instagram, emphasized in some of our case studies, such as events, we will document our own process in looking for the best possible ways to present a more balanced account of our synchronous qualitative and quantitative data. We will do so against the temporal background of the experience of the first day of the Primavera Sound 2016, where we conducted fieldwork while extracting data from Instagram. After carrying out different tests with alternative visualization tools and formats, we chose to work with timeline tools, particularly those who offered a narrative layout against the backdrop of experience time. In a research where time and synchrony play a pivotal role, we suggest that adding a temporal dimension in visualization could be a way of connecting both perspectives, thus allowing to present different sources and types of data together, while also expanding the role that storytelling can play in visualizing data.

Mobilizing Grief and Remembrance with and for Networked Publics: towards a Typology of Hyper-Mourning

The past decade has seen an intense mobilization of grief and remembrance on social media linked to the injunction to inscribe, share, and curate life and death in the here-and-now. This article navigates the heterogeneity of these practices, using the term hyper-mourning to point both to the conditioning of mourning by the affordances of hyper-connectivity and to debates around these emerging forms of mourning as being emotionally hyperbolic and ‘inauthentic’ reactions to death events. Based on the discussion of select examples, I sketch out a typology of hyper-mourning, depending on the different story positions of teller, co-teller, or witness from which such performances are produced. As I argue, these different performances become typically associated with particular modes of affective positioning made available to the recipients of these shared stories—namely positions of proximity or distance to the death event and the dead, the networked recipient(s), and the emotional self. This typology proposes a small stories approach to hyper-mourning practices, which are organized around the mobilization of grief and remembrance for connecting networked audiences around identities, affect, and moral values dis/alignments. The article contributes to the interdisciplinary study of digital cultures of memory, affect, and identities.

„Þetta þarf að virka hratt og örugglega“: Áskoranir við að þróa aðferðir sem meta nám og vellíðan barna í leikskóla

Greinin fjallar um ferli starfendarannsóknar í einum af fimm leikskólum, á höfuðborgarsvæðinu utan Reykjavíkur, sem tóku þátt í samstarfsrannsókn sem var samvinnuverkefni við Rannsóknarstofu í menntunarfræðum ungra barna (RannUng). Þátttakendur í þessum hluta rannsóknarinnar voru þrír starfsmenn á elstu deild leikskólans ásamt leikskólastjóra. Markmið hennar var að þróa aðferðir sem meta nám og vellíðan barna í leikskólanum. Farin var sú leið að skrá námssögur eða gera uppeldisfræðilegar skráningar sem eru matsaðferðir sem beina sjónum að getu, hæfni og áhuga hvers barns, eins og Aðalnámskrá leikskóla (Mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneytið, 2012) kveður á um að eigi að framkvæma. Einnig var varpað ljósi á hugmyndir starfsfólksins um mat, hvernig mat í leikskólastarfi ætti að fara fram og hvað væri mikilvægt að meta. Gagna var aflað með einstaklingsviðtölum og reglulegum fundum í formi hópsamtala yfir eitt skólaár þar sem uppeldisfræðilegar skráningar voru gjarnan notaðar til umræðu.Niðurstöður leiddu í ljós að þátttakendur töldu að félagsfærni og góð samskiptafærni ættu að vera helstu áherslur í námi leikskólabarna. Þær matsaðferðir, sem nýttar voru í leikskólastarfinu, beindust hins vegar að því að meta þætti eins og málþroska barna. Áskoranir við að innleiða skráningar í leikskólastarfið voru töluverðar. Þátttakendur upplifðu að skipulag skráninganna væri óljóst, til dæmis varðandi hvað ætti að koma fram í skráningunni og hvernig framsetning hennar ætti að vera. Þeir upplifðu einnig tímaskort til að skrá og ígrunda saman. Þátttakendur töluðu um að skráning af athöfnum barnanna væri enn eitt verkefnið sem bættist í amstur dagsins en erfiðlega gekk að gera skráningar að daglegum hluta leikskólastarfsins. Fáar skráningar voru gerðar í rannsóknarferlinu en áhrif þátttökunnar á starfsfólk voru meira í formi hugarfars- og viðhorfsbreytinga gagnvart börnum og mati á námi og líðan þeirra. Niðurstöður benda til þess að þörf sé á viðhorfsbreytingu gagnvart aðferðum til að meta nám og vellíðan barna ef takast á að uppfylla þau skilyrði sem Aðalnámskrá leikskóla (Mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneytið, 2012) setur.

Empowering students’ engagement in organic chemistry learning through integration of dilemma stories with number head together

This paper portrays research into an innovative curriculum project of dilemma stories which was conducted at a secondary school in Jakarta, with 44 students of year 12. The research focused on the development and implications of a dilemma stories approach with the Numbered Heads Together method in Organic Chemistry learning. The dilemmas stories on the topics of formaldehida, alcoholic drinks, paracetamol drugs, and butter and margarine were developed in this research study. A qualitative approach was implemented with multiple methods including interviews, reflective journals, and classroom observations. Data analysis was conducted based on the themes found throughout the learning process. The results of the research showed the effects of this innovative approach on students’ development of higher order thinking skills, argumentation skills, collaboration skills, problem solving skills, personal values reflection, and responsibility. Students learnt to solve the dilemma problems in real situations which related to chemistry learning. The teacher became involved in this innovative approach for engaging students and improving their learning quality. In conclusion, the dilemmas stories approach has engaged the teacher and students in meaningful chemistry learning experiences.

The Historical Story behind the Discovery: How Does It Affect Students’ Attitude towards the Scientific Endeavor?

This study examined changes in students’ attitudes towards the scientific endeavor by exploring the impact of introducing historical stories and rationales into the science curriculum. The stories referred to discoveries by four scientists: Galvani (the discovery of the electrical current), Fleming (the discovery of penicillin), Archimedes (the discovery of the floating principle), and Kekulé (the discovery of the structure of the benzene ring). The participants comprised 542 Arab students from northern Israel between the ages of 12 and 16. Out of the 542 students, 270 studied a curriculum that included historical stories approach (the experimental group), and 272 studied a curriculum without historical stories approach (the control group). A questionnaire was used to examine the students’ attitudes towards the scientific endeavor. The results provide evidence for the view that relating the story behind the discovery significantly improves students’ attitudes towards science in comparison with those who study according to a traditional approach. The students noticed that certain circumstances must be present in order to enable a scientist to make his discovery. The main conclusion is that the scientific curriculum should include adequate scientific subject matter, integrating historical stories in order to encourage students to develop positive attitudes towards and perceptions of science.

Performing curriculum and constructing identity: small stories as a framework for studying identity and learning in classroom discourse

ABSTRACTThis classroom discourse study examines how curriculum becomes a resource for identity performance in one ESL classroom. Conceptualizing identity as performance, I adopt a small stories approach to analyze how one routinized vocabulary instructional activity was appropriated by classroom participants to perform identities and construct the classroom moral order. Through analyses of two excerpts of classroom talk, I show that the ESL teacher narrated her story into teaching as an instructional example and performed a dominating teacher identity rhetorically portrayed in a morally positive light. A Taiwanese immigrant boy appropriated the language practice for displaying a funny, nonlearner masculinity. His identity-displaying narrative, however, ran counter to the moral expectation of being a “good learner” embedded in this language activity, leading to his social identification as a problem student. This analysis illustrates that the identity categories in the language curriculum provided linguistic resources for the classroom participants to perform identities that worked to perpetuate or challenge dominant discourses of being. The process of teaching and learning is deeply intertwined with identity negotiation and moral positioning. This analysis also illuminates the theoretical and methodological affordances of a small stories approach to examine the emergence of identities in language classroom discourse.

Earwitnessing (In)Equity: Tracing the Intra-Active Encounters of ‘Being-in-Resonance-With’ Sound and the Social Contexts of Education

Tracing the acoustic ecologies of urban education through a topography of phenomena, this article considers how sound operates as more than paratext to the institutional structures, forms, and mechanisms of teaching and learning. Combining perspectives from phenomenology, feminist new materialisms, and sound studies, the article traces the intra-active encounters and potential tensions in using sound as a locating mechanism to “earwitness” (in)equity in schooling. Taking seriously that sound is not merely vibrations passing through matter at particular frequencies, but a tool that depicts social relations, the paper uses a stacked stories approach to understand how sound and the sonic experience of education intersect and come to crystalize a being-in-resonance-with across particular phenomena.

Work-related language learning trajectories of migrant cleaners in Finland

Cleaning is often the survival employment that migrants can get in their new home country. Ideally, the workplace can be a site for integration and language learning. This article explores how two migrants working as cleaners in Finland narrate their work-related Finnish language learning trajectories. The research is designed by applying nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004), which focuses on social action in the intersection of interaction order, participants’ life experiences, and discourses in place. The social action in focus here is investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015), which means a commitment to developing language skills to achieve one’s aspirations. The article also analyses how language learners position themselves and are positioned by others, because positioning affects access to meaningful learning opportunities. Positioning analysis by Bamberg and Georgakopoulou (2008) in a small stories approach is applied to analyse the key participants’ oral narratives told in the context of ethnographic research interviews. Follow-up interviews conducted a year later are analysed to show how positioning changes over time. The study illustrates that investment in work-related language learning is meaningful when occupational development and language learning can be purposefully combined. However, migrants are positioned as a potential workforce in low-level jobs and their expertise is often ignored, which means that investments in language learning might not pay off in career development. Supporting educated migrants in finding appropriate employment would facilitate goal-oriented language learning.