Literacies and Three Women's On-Going Stories to Shift Identities: A Narrative Inquiry

• Author / Creator

  Jack-Malik, Sandra

• This study is a narrative inquiry. The study follows a recursive, reflexive process which allowed me to move between telling, retelling and reliving of stories while engaging alongside relationships. The participants and I created a variety of field texts and then moved to interim and finally research texts. I used the commonplaces of temporality, sociality and place which afforded me a conceptual framework to inquire into, and write about, our stories of experience.
  Having inquired into my narrative beginnings I came to understood I wanted to deepen understandings of how literacies less than a woman desires shapes, her identities and to understand how and if shifts in literacies would influence identities. Therefore, this study involved an intervention carried out over 6 months. The participants and I met 3 times per week for 90 minute. During this time I tutored the women in English Language Arts. There were two participants; two women for whom English was the language of instruction at school and who knew and named themselves as wanting to improve their literacies.
  Before beginning the tutoring we engaged in research conversations. We did this in efforts to know and name identity threads. Throughout the tutoring we met once a month for research conversations where I asked the women to share stories of how the tutoring was influencing their lives. I have written narrative accounts for each of us. These accounts tell remembered stories and they tell stories of our shared experiences. In laying our stories side by each, I pulled forward narrative threads which reverberated across the accounts. The first thread was the importance of living alongside relationships as we struggled to shift our identities while maintaining narrative coherence. Next, was the importance of inquiring into stories from our early, pre-reflective landscapes. A third thread was the importance of place in our efforts to shift our identities and the final thread was the ongoing efforts to live, retell and relive our stories to live by.
  In the final chapter I noted the significance of this work and I also outlined wonders which continue to linger with me.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Literacies
  • Identities
  • Women
  • narrative inquiry

• Graduation date

  Spring 2012

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3WW65

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.