Introduction

Marilyn Johnston-Parsons

Michael F. Watts

pp. 81-86

in: Paul Smeyers, David Bridges, Nicholas C. Burbules, Morwenna Griffiths (eds), International handbook of interpretation in educational research, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

Both narratives and narrative research engage with the construction of meaning through the organisation and interpretation of experience – whether the experience of individuals, communities, or countries. Narratives help us make sense of the world and communicate our understanding of it. Bruner (Bruner 1986; Connelly and Clandinin 1990) suggests that the power of narrative is to render "the exceptional and the unusual into comprehensible form" (p. 47); Clandinin and Connelly (1990) claim that people tell stories because they "lead storied lives' (p. 2). Narrative is the form by which we think of ourselves and others; we generate stories as a way of constructing our lives.