The Rise of the Life Narrative

Full text

Ivor Goodson
7
Teacher Education Quarterly, Fall 2006
The Rise
of the Life Narrative
By Ivor Goodson
When we go on about the big things, the political situation, global warming, world
poverty, it all looks really terrible, with nothing getting better, nothing to look forward
to. But when I think small, closer inóyou know a girl Iíve just met, or this song weíre
going to do with Chas, or snowboarding next month, then it looks great. So this is
going to be my mottoóthink small.
óIan McEwan, Saturday, Penguin, London, 2005, (pp. 34-35)
There is a kind of popular consensus at the moment that we live in ìan age of
narrativeîóthe truth is rather more complex, for although it is true that narratives
and stories are part of the common currency of the day, the scale of those narratives,
their scope and aspiration, has dramatically changed.
In fact we are entering a period for particular kinds of
narratives: life narratives and small-scale narratives.
In past periods there have been ìgrand narrativesî
of human intention and progress. Hywell Williams in
his recent chronological history of the world argues
that the link between human history and progress in
grand narrative grew exponentially in the mid nine-
teenth century. He says the progress narratives that
emerged at this time were often ìbrash and naÔve.î
It was certainly founded on the fact of material ad-
vanceóthe sudden and greater ease of travel, improve-
Ivor Goodson is a
professor of learning
theory with the
Education Research
Centre at the University
of Brighton, Brighton,
East Sussex, United
Kingdom. For more
information see
www.ivorgoodson.com

The Rise of the Life Narrative
8
ments in sanitation and the reduction in disease, which so impressed contemporaries
in the advanced West. These victories also seemed to signify a real moral progress.
Nobody supposed that humanity was getting better at producing saints and geniuses,
but there was a new confidence in the possibility of a well-ordered society. The
intellectual advances that were once the preserve of an educated elite had spread
further. (Williams, 2005, p. 18)
Commenting on the public life associated with these changes he says: ì Once, the
sceptical courtiers of the eighteenth century had sneered at superstition in gossipy
little groupsóa century later greater masses of people debated great issues of religion
and science, political reform and freedom of trade in public meetingsî (Ibid).
In the last sentence we can see how far public engagement has fallenóthe idea
of great masses of people debating great issues is inconceivable in a present world.
In part this is closely related to the decline of narrative scope and aspiration.
We have witnessed in the twentieth century the collapse of grand narratives.
Again Williams provides a valuable summary:
The idea of the grand narrative in the human sciences has fallen out of fashion.
Christian providence, Freudian psychology, positivist sciences, Marxist class-
consciousness, nationalist autonomy, fascist will: all have attempted to supply
narratives that shape the past. When it comes to practical politics, some of these
narratives proved to involve repression and death.
The history of the twentieth century dissolved the connection between material and
scientific progress and a better moral order. Technological advance was twice turned
to the business of mass slaughter in global war, as well as genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Material progress was seen to mingle with moral regress. The model T Ford and the
gas chamber were the inventions that defined the century. (Williams, 2005, p. 18)
We can then begin to see how grand narratives fell from grace, losing not only
scope and aspiration but also our underpinning faith in their general capacity to
guide or shape our destiny. Into the vortex left after the collapse of the grand
narratives we see the emergence of another kind of narrative, infinitely smaller in
scope, often individualisedóthe personal life story. It reflects a dramatic change
in the scale of human belief and aspiration. Alongside these small narratives we also
see a return to older, more fundamentalist precepts.
How has this transformation of the role and scope of narrative been worked?
How is the new genre socially constructed? Writing in 1996, I argued that literature
and art are normally ahead of other cultural carriers of ideology in providing us with
new scripts, and define our personal narratives and ìlife politics.î I said we should
locate ìour scrutiny of stories to show that the general forms, skeletons, and
ideologies that we employ in structuring the way we tell our individual tales come
from a wider cultureî (Goodson, 2005, p. 215).
Following this scrutiny I think we can see in contemporary cultural activity
how the move to smaller, more individual life narratives is emerging. Interestingly
this is often referred to as the ìage of narrativeî: of narrative politics, of narrative

Ivor Goodson
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story telling, of narrative identity. Put in historical perspective against the last
centuries following the Age of Enlightenment, we should see this as the beginning,
not of the ìage of narratives,î but of the ìage of small narratives.î In our current
individualized society, our art, culture and politics increasingly reflect a move to
highly-individualized or special-interest narratives, which often draw on the
literature of therapy and personal and self-development.
Perhaps a few examples from the work of some of our cultural icons will illustrate
the point. Bruce Springsteen, the American rock star, has I think always been one of
the best and most perceptive story tellers. He writes his songs very carefully and works
on quite large canvases of human aspiration at times, such as his album The River. In
this album he reflects, in line with Bob Dylan, who recently wrote that he ìhadnít got
a dream that hadnít been repossessed,î on the limiting of human dreams. Springsteen
wrote, ìIs a dream a lie if it donít come true, or is it something worse?î These reflections
on the capacity of larger human aspirations to direct our life narratives have recently
driven him in a more specific, individual direction. His album The Ghost of Tom Joad
profoundly reflects in its title, as well as in substance, awareness of a massive shift in
narrative scope. Tom Joad, of course, the figure in Steinbeckís Grapes of Wrath, carries
a storyline linked to mass movements at the time, which aimed to provide social justice
at a time of global business depression. Once this link between individual storylines
and collective aspirations is broken, we enter the epoch of small narratives, the world
of individualised ìlife politics.î
In a sense Springsteenís latest work, such as Devils and Dust, reflects the move
we are describing: the move from grand narratives linked to political engagement
towards individual life narratives and more specifically focussed life politics. We
can see how this seismic shift in narrative capacity is explored and scripted in the
work of our creative artists. Returning to the focus of Springsteenís The Ghost of Tom
Joad, we see a retrospective look at narrative linked to social and political purpose;
but his new album moves off into an individual life-narrative focus. Sean OíHagan
writes: ìUnlike The Ghost of Tom Joad it possesses none of that albumís pointed
social awareness. Instead we get a set of intimate and often fragmentary glimpses
of ordinary peopleís lives in troubleî (OíHagan, 2005, p. 7). ìWhat I have done on
this record,î elaborates Springsteen on the DVD, ìis to write specific narrative
stories about people whose souls are in danger or are at risk from where they are in
the world or what the world is bringing to themî (Ibid., 24 April 2005).
Once again then, Springsteen tries to link his narratives to a broader tradition, but
this time the link is largely rhetorical, for the stories now are fragmentary and
individualised without reference to broader social movements (beyond the nebulous
ìfolk traditionî). As he says, he now writes ìspecific narrative storiesî about people
and the passivity of the response is reflected in his phrase that these people are ìat risk
from where they are in the world or what the world is bringing to them.î The scope
and aspiration of narratives is finely elaborated in this quote, and it illustrates the
seismic shift in the narrative capacity that has happened over the past two centuries.

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The same redefinition of narrative capacity can be seen in filmmaking. Many
filmmakers articulate their use of specific life narratives in contemporary filmmak-
ing. Jorge Semprun, for example, who has made some of the most resonant political
films, said recently in an interview that ìthe atmosphere in May í68 and its aftermath
created an appetite for political films.î ìBut today the mood is different. If you are
to make a political film now you have to approach it not from the point of a nation
or national struggle, but one of individual choiceî (interview with Jorge Semprun,
2004, p. 4). Gil Troy (1999), a history professor writing in The New York Times, put
it the same way when contemplating the possibilities of action in the contemporary
world: ìOur challenge today is to find meaning not in a national crises, but in an
individualís daily lifeî (September 24, p. A27).
Reviewing new books on Derrida and Marx, Dolon Cummings (2006) recently
reflected on these changes in the reach of theoretical narrative in looking at the
differences between the two writers:
For theory to ìgrip the masses,î as Marx puts it, there has to be at least the foundation
of a mass movement for it to address. Without such a movement, theory lacks
direction, discipline even. Consequently the obscurity of contemporary philosophy
as exemplified by Derrida and his followers is not a purely intellectual phenomenon.
Disconnected from political engagement reading lacks urgency and how we read and
what becomes almost arbitrary. (p. 39)
Cummings adds a very significant last sentence: ìBut the question of how to read
any author cannot be entirely separated from the question of how to live, and that
is a question that never really goes awayî (p. 39).
We see here the changing canvas for narrative construction and the dramatic
change in scope and aspiration and we can see this reflected in our social and
political life. The change can be seen in the political adviser on network TV who
recently put it this way: ìNo itís not that we see the need to change the policy in
response to public opposition . . . no not at all. . . . Our conclusion is that we need
to change the story we tell about the policy.î
This is a perfect redefinition of the new genre of ìnarrative politics.î New in
one sense, but in fact dating back some way in timeómost significantly to the public
relations guru, Edward Bernays. Bernays believed we could manipulate peopleís
unconscious desires and by appealing to them you could sell anythingófrom soap
powder to political policies. It was a matter of crafting the right kind of story. Hence:
ìYou didnít vote for a political party out of duty, or because you believed it had
the best policies to advance the common good; you did so because of a secret feeling
that it offered you the most likely opportunity to promote your selfî (Adams, 2002,
p. 5). As Christopher Cauldwell has noted as a result of the triumph of narrative
politics: ìPolitics has gone from largely being about capital and labour to being
largely about identity and sovereigntyî (Cauldwell, 2005). Politicians appear to
understand this need for narrative fine-tuning as they hone their policies. The

Ivor Goodson
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narrative matters more than the substance, as this quote form the late lamented Charles
Kennedy makes clear: ìWhilst we had good and quite popular policies [pause] we
have got to find and fashion a narrativeî (as quoted in Branigan, 2005, p. 8).
Nothing illustrates the shift from old hierarchies of cultural and symbolic
capital towards something we might call ìnarrative capitalî better than the case of
David Cameron, the new leader of the Tory party in Britain (see Goodson, 2005).
In previous generations his Old Etonian and Oxford connections would have
provided an authoritative narrative through which to promote his political ambi-
tions. The cultural and symbolic capital of such an education would then have come
with an implicit and very powerful storyline. These places traditionally produced
those who govern us whilst the symbolic and social capital is still largely intact.
Cameron has predictably worried about constructing an acceptable life narrative.
The dilemma is outlined in this interview with Martin Bentham (2005), undertaken
before he became leader:
But as Cameron insists, it is not just his preference for racy television programmes
that calls into question the stereotyped image that others have placed upon him. He
cites his liking for the ìgloomy left-wingî music of bands such as the Smiths,
Radiohead, and Snow Patrol, which brings ribbing from his friends, as a further
example of his divergence from the traditional Tory image, and also, perhaps rather
rashly for a newly appointed shadow Education Secretary, admits to regularly
misbehaving ìin all sorts of waysí while at school.î
Most importantly, however, he says that what keeps him connected very firmly
in ordinary life is the job of representing his constituents in Witney, Oxfordshire, and
life at home with his wife, Samantha, and their two children, three-year-old Ivan, who
suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy, and Nancy, who is aged 14 months.
ìAm I too posh to push?î he quips, before determinedly explaining why he
rejects the criticism of his background. ìIn the sort of politics I believe in it shouldnít
matter what youíve had in the past, itís what you are going to contribute in the future,
and I think that should be true of everybody, from all parts of society, all colours and
ages and races, and I hope that goes for Old Etonians too.î (p.10)
What I think Cameron has noted is that if he re-crafts his life narrative ìit
shouldnít matter what youíve had in the past.î In other words he is worried that his
life experience of sustained systematic privilege will interfere with the narrative he
is trying to create for himself and his party where there is a ìgenuine care and
compassion for those who fall behindî and where what ìpeople really want (is) a
practical down-to-earth alternative to Labour.î He ends, ìAm I too posh? It
shouldnít really matter where you come fromóeven if itís Eton.î While Eton then
may have massive historical claims to cultural and symbolic capital, the narrative
capital it provides is clearly a little more difficult to present and cash in. Cameronís
honest appraisal of the dilemma elegantly illustrates the seismic shift towards
narrative politics and how this is likely to feed through into new educational modes
for acquiring narrative capital (see Goodson, 2004).

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The same importance of narrative capital can be seen working its way into the
literature on business management and leadership. Peter Sengeís (2005) work on
the discipline of business leaders points to the salience of what he calls the
ìprinciple storyî in the motivation and direction of business leaders.
To forge the link between the multinational and the personal, we need to grasp
each personís life-theme. Senge says this about purpose stories:
The interviews that I conducted as background for this chapter led to what was, for
me, a surprising discovery. Although the three leaders with whom I talked operate
in completely different industriesóa traditional service business, a traditional
manufacturing business, and a high-tech manufacturing businessóand although the
specifics of their views differed substantially, they each appeared to draw their own
inspiration from the same source. Each perceived a deep story and a sense of purpose
that lay behind his vision, what we have come to call the purpose storyó a larger
pattern of becoming that gives meaning to his personal aspirations and his hopes for
their organization. For OíBrien the story has to do with ìthe ascent of man.î For
Simon, it has to do with ìliving in a more creative orientation.î For Ray Stat, it has
to do ìwith integrating thinking and doing.î
This realization came late one evening, after a very long day with the tape and
transcript of one of the interviews. I began to see that these leaders were doing
something different from just ìstory telling,î in the sense of using stories to teach
lessons or transmit bits of wisdom. They were relating the storyóthe overarching
explanation of why they do what they do, how their organizations need to evolve, and
how this evolution is part of something larger. As I reflected back on gifted leaders
whom I have known, I realized that this ìlarger storyî was common to them all, and
conversely that many otherwise competent manages in leadership positions were not
leaders of the same ilk precisely because they saw no larger story.
The leaderís purpose story is both personal and universal. It defines her or his
lifeís work. It ennobles his efforts, yet leaves an abiding humility that keeps him from
taking his own successes and failures too seriously. It brings a unique depth to
meaning to his vision, a larger landscape upon which his personal dreams and goals
stand out as landmarks on a longer journey. But what is important, this story is central
to his ability to lead. It places his organizationís purpose, its reason for being within
a context of ìwhere weíve come from and where weíre headed,î where the ìweî goes
beyond the organization itself to humankind more broadly. In this sense, they naturally
see their organization as a vehicle for bringing learning and change into society. This
is the power of the purpose storyóit provides a single integrating set of ideas that
give meaning to all aspects of a leaderís work. (p. 346)
The pattern of narrative construction can be discerned at work now in the
advertising industry. In previous times advertising was a mass movement which
meant it targeted large segments of the population and addressed them through the
mass media of television, radio, and the press. Whilst this was not a process free of
narrative construction, and was indeed deeply impregnated in this way, it was the
narrative construction of collective identities and collective desires that could be
reached through the mass media. These were not grand narratives, but they are

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certainly large narratives aimed at significant sections of the population. This
collective narrative advertising is beginning to break down in the face of the rise
of the small narrative and the individualised society. The evidence is everywhere.
To give one piece of evidence: in the last year advertising revenues are down 3.5
percent for the national press, 4.5 percent for commercial radio, and 3.3 percent for
the main commercial television stations (ITV1). These are very significant reduc-
tions over a one-year period and indicate the beginnings of a sharp decline of mass-
narrative advertising. In its place, according to the National Consumer Council, is
a wholly different pattern of advertising. In contrast to the figures above advertising
on the Internet rose 70 percent last year. This is a seismic shift in the size and
aspiration of advertising. A spokesman for the National Consumer Council said:
The point about the Internet is that people can be told individually tailored stories which
fit their own prejudices and predilections. The advertiser can access all this niche
information and can tailor individual and personalised narratives for each individual
taste. This is likely to be much more successful than the hit and miss mass advertising
of the past. (Interview on BBC News, 23 March 2006)
We can see then how the ìage of small narratives,î of life narratives, has been
expressed in emerging patterns of art, of politics, of business. In this sense the
problematics of studying peopleís lives are part of a wider context of social relations,
proprieties and provisions. Lasch, for instance, has scrutinised the historical trajectory
of private lives in Haven in a Heartless World (Lasch, 1977). In his history of modern
society he discerns two distinct phases. In the first phase he argues that the division of
labor which accompanied the development of individual capitalism deprived ordinary
people of control over their work, making that work alienating and unfulfilling. In the
second phase Lasch argues that liberalism promoted a view that, while work might be
alienated under capital, all could be restored in the private domain. ìIt was agreed that
people would be freed to pursue happiness and virtue in their private lives in whatever
manner they chose.î The work place was this severed form; the home and the family
became the ìhaven in the heartless worldî (Menaud, 1991). No sooner was this equation
established, Lasch argues, than liberalism reneged.
Private life was opening up to the ìhelpingî professions: doctors, teachers, psycholo-
gist, child guidance experts, juvenile court officers, and the like. The private domain was
immediately made prey to these quasi-official ìforces of organized virtueî and ìthe hope
that private transactions could make up for the collapse of communal traditions and civic
orderî was smothered by the helping professions. (Lasch, 1977, p.168)
Interestingly, Denzin (1991) has recently argued that ethnographers and biog-
raphers represent the latest wave in this ìpenetrationî of private lives, and that this
is to be expected at a time when we see ìthe emergence of a new conservative politics
of health and morality, centring on sexuality, the family and the individualî (p. 2).
Hence he argues:

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The biography and the autobiography are among Reaganís legacy to American society.
In these writing forms the liberal and left American academic scholarly community
reasserts a commitment to the value of individual lives and their accurate representation
in the life story document. The story thus becomes the leftís answer to the repressive
conservative politics of the last two decades of American history. With this method the
sorrowful tales of Americaís underclass can be told. In such tellings a romantic and
political identification with the downtrodden will be produced. From this identification
will come a new politics of protest; a politics grounded in the harsh and raw economics,
racial, and sexual edges of contemporary life. This method will reveal how large social
groupings are unable to either live out their ideological versions of the American dream,
or to experience personal happiness. (p. 2)
And further:
In re-inscribing the real life, with all its nuances, innuendoes and terrors, in the life
story, researchers perpetuate a commitment to the production of realist, melodramatic
social problems texts which create an identification with the downtrodden in
American society. These works of realism reproduce and mirror the social structures
that need to be changed. They valorise the subjectivity of the powerless individual.
They make a hero of the interactionist-ethnographer voyeur who comes back from
the field with moving tales of the dispossessed. They work from an ideological bias
that emphasizes the situational, adjustive, and normative approach to social problems
and their resolutions, whether this be in the classroom and their resolutions, whether
this be in the classroom, the street, or the home. (ibid, pp. 2-3)
The rise of the life narrative clearly comes with a range of problems and also
possibilities for the social scientist. By scrutinising the wider social context of life
narratives, we can begin to appreciate the dilemmas of qualitative work, which
focuses on personal narratives and life stories.
The version of ìpersonalî that has been constructed and worked for in some
Western countries is a particular version, an individualistic version, of being a person.
It is unrecognizable to much of the rest of the world. But so many of the stories and
narratives we have of teachers work unproblematically and without comment with this
version of personal being and personal knowledge. Masking the limits of individu-
alism, such accounts often present ìisolation, estrangement, and loneliness . . . as
autonomy, independence and self-relianceî (Andrews, 1991, p.13). Andrews con-
cludes that if we ignore social context, we deprive ourselves and our collaborators of
meaning and understanding. She says, ìIt would seem apparent that the context in
which human lives are lived is central to the core of meaning in those livesî and argues
ìresearchers should not, therefore, feel at liberty to discuss or analyse how individuals
perceive meaning in their lives and in the world around them, while ignoring the
content and context of that meaningî (p.13).
The truth is that many times a life storyteller will neglect the structural context
of their lives or interpret such contextual forces from a biased point of view. As
Denzin (1989) says, ìMany times a person will act as if he or she made his or her own

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history when, in fact, he or she was forced to make the history he or she livedî (p,
74). He gives an example from the 1986 study of alcoholics: ìYou know I made the
last four months, by myself. I havenít used or drank. Iím really proud of myself. I did
itî (pp. 74-75). A friend, listening to this account commented:
You know you were under a court order all last year. You know you didnít do this
on your own. You were forced to, whether you want to accept this fact or not. You
also went to AA and NA. Listen Buster you did what you did because you had help
and because you were afraid, and thought you had no other choice. Donít give me
this, ìI did it on my owní crap.î
The speaker replies, ìI know. I just donít like to admit it.î Denzin concludes:
This listener invokes two structural forces, the state and AA, which accounted in part
for this speakerís experience. To have secured only the speakerís account, without
a knowledge of his biography and personal history, would have produced a biased
interpretation of his situation. (pp. 74-75)
The story, then, provides a starting point for developing further understandings
of the social construction of subjectivity, if the stories stay at the level of the personal
and practical, we forego that opportunity. Speaking of the narrative method
focusing on personal and practical teachersí knowledge, Willinsky (1989) writes:
ìI am concerned that a research process [that] intends to recover the personal and
experiential would pave over this construction site in its search for an overarching
unity in the individualís narrativeî (p. 259).
These then are the issues that begin to confront us as the age of the life narrative
gathers pace. Let us then review some of the problems that working with individual life
narratives face. First the personal life story is an individualizing device if divorced from
context. It focuses on the uniqueness of individual personality and circumstance and
in doing so may well obscure or ignore collective circumstances and historical
movements. Life stories are only constructed in specific historical circumstance and
cultural conditionsóthese have to be bought into our methodological grasp.
Second then, the individual life story far from being personally constructed is
itself scripted. The social scripts people employ in telling their life story are derived
from a small number of acceptable archetypes available in the wider society. The
life story script, far from being autonymous, is highly dependent on wider social
scripts. In a sense what we get when we listen to a life story is a combination of
archetypal stories derived from wider social forces and the personal characteriza-
tions the life storyteller invokes. The life story therefore has to be culturally located
as we pursue our understandings.
In general, life stories themselves do not acknowledge this cultural location
explicitly; neither do they reflect explicitly on their historical location in a
particular time and place. The life story as data, therefore, faces a third dilemma in
that it can be a de-contextualizing device, or at the very least an under-contextualizing
device. This means that the historical context of life stories needs to be further

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elucidated and they need to be understood in relationship to time and periodization.
We can think of time, as the French Annalistes do, as existing at a number of levels.
First there is broad historical timeóthe large sweeps and periods of human
history, what the Annalistes called the ìlongue durÈe.î Then there is generational
or cohort timeóthe specific experiences of particular generations, say the ìbaby-
boomersî born after the Second World War. Then there is cyclical time óthe
stages of the life cycle from birth through to work and child-rearing (for some)
through to retirement and death. Finally there is the personal timeóthe way each
person develops phases and patterns according to personal dreams, objectives, or
imperatives across the life-course.
These historical factors associated with time and period have to be addressed
as we develop our understandings of life story data. This scrutiny of historical
context, more broadly conceived, will also allow us to interrogate the issue of
individualizing and scripting mentioned earlier. The aim is to provide a story of
individual action within a theory of context. This aim is served when we make the
transition from life story studies to life histories.
Learning Lives: An Example
In this section I give an example of a research project I am currently involved
with that seeks to address some of the dilemmas present in life history workóthe
language of individualizing, scripting and de-contextualizing inherent in the rise
of the life narrative. The Learning Lives project is a large interdisciplinary project
funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in Britain from 2004-2008.
What is developed in this project is a range of strategies that provides an historical
and cultural context for understanding lives. We require a range of approaches to
capture the complexities of time mentioned earlieróthe broad, historical, the
generational, the cyclical and the personal dimensions of lives situated in time.
Learning Lives is a longitudinal study that aims to deepen understanding of the
meaning and significance of informal learning in the lives of adults, and aims to
identify ways in which the learning of adults can be supported and enhanced. As well
as informal learning, the project has begun to focus on what we have called ìprimal
learning.î Primal learning is the kind of learning that goes on in the elaboration and
ongoing maintenance of a life narrative or identity project. The kind of motifs that
emerge in primal learning are those such as the quest, the journey, the dreamóall of
them central motifs for the ongoing elaboration of a life mission. We have come to
see this kind of narrative learning as central in the way that people learn throughout
the life-course and to see that it requires a different form of research and elaboration
to understand than the more traditional kinds of formal and informal learning. It is at
this point in investigating primal learning that we begin to develop the concepts of
narrative capital and narrative learning, which were mentioned earlier.
In the Learning Lives project collaboration between the universities of

Ivor Goodson
17
Brighton, Exeter, Leeds and Stirling, we are also focussing as well on different
genres of learningóon the relationships between mobility, migration and learning,
work employment and learning, and learning in the family and the community. We
are also beginning to develop a strong theme around the learning of older people
and how that links with new forms of primal learning at later ages.
Currently we are almost half way through the project, and a little over half way
through data collection. Respondents have mainly been interviewed three or four
times in this period and most will be interviewed a further two to four times before the
close of the project. Interviews begin as unstructured, but as the project progresses and
initial analysis is undertaken, so progressive focussing takes place and some degree
of structure begins to emerge in the questions asked. Nevertheless, it is the intent of
the interviewers to keep open as many avenues as possible for as long as possible to
ensure that early closure of important narratives does not ensue. The extent of focus
and structure is dependent on the individual interviewer and each interviewee.
The desire to keep interviews unstructured at the beginning comes from a desire
to get the life storytellers to rehearse their story with us, with as little intervention
as possible. The role of the interviewer is one of listener, and we try, at least in the
first interview, to keep as close as we can to our ìvow of silence.î
As the next interviews progress this means our interview questions grow from
the original, largely unmediated, life story. As the interviewer begins to cross-
question the life storyteller using the data sources, such as documentary data and
other testimonies, we move from life story to life history. The process of triangula-
tion represents this move to life history.
The Life History
Life Story
Documentary Other
Resources Testimonies
From initial analysis of the texts a number of broad themes have emerged. In
this case the theme was around the importance placed on early childhood experi-
ences to explain later life events and choices. The respondent whose stories we use

The Rise of the Life Narrative
18
in this paper is one of the respondents who fit into this themed group. The stories
have been selected to provide an overview of the range of experiences in childhood
and adolescence that may be seen as important for identity formation in later life,
and for the quests that have developed from these experiences.
What makes the project relatively unique is not only its length (a data-collection
period of almost three years) and size (about 750 in-depth interviews with 150 adults
aged 25 and older, plus a longitudinal questionnaire study with 1,200 participants),
but also the fact that it combines two distinct research approaches, life history research
and life-course research, and that within the latter approach, it utilises a combination
of interpretative longitudinal research and quantitative survey research.
Learning Lives
life-history research life-course research
interpretative longitudinal quantitative survey
research research
In the Learning Lives project we have the chance to see how life history can
elucidate learning responses. What we do in the project is to deal with learning as one
of the strategies people employ as the response to events in their lives. The great virtue
of this situation regarding our understanding of learning within the whole life context
is that we get some sense of the issue of engagement in learning as it relates to people
living their lives. When we see learning as a response to actual events, then the issue
of engagement can be taken for granted. So much of the literature on learning fails to
address this crucial question of engagement, and as a result learning is seen as some
formal task that is unrelated to the needs and interests of the learner. Hence so much
of curriculum planning is based on prescriptive definitions of what is to be learnt
without any understanding of the situation within the learnersí lives. As a result a vast
amount of curriculum planning is abortive because the learner simply does not
engage. To see learning as located within a life history is to understand that learning
is contextually situated and that it also has a history, in terms of (a) the individualís
life story, (b) the history and trajectories of the institutions that offer formal learning
opportunities, and (c) the histories of the communities and locations in which
informal learning takes place. In terms of transitional spaces we can see learning as
a response to incidental transitions, such as: events related to illness, unemployment
and domestic dysfunction, as well as the more structured transitions related to
credentialing or retirement. Hence, these transitional events create encounters with
formal, informal and primal learning opportunities.
How then do we organize our work to make sure that our collection of life
narratives and learning narratives does not fall into the traps of individualization,
scripting, and de-contextualization? The answer is we try to build in an ongoing

Ivor Goodson
19
concern with time and historical period, and context and historical location. In
studying learning, like any social practice, we need to build in an understanding
of the context, historical and social, in which that learning takes place. This means
that our initial collection of life stories as narrated moves on into a collaboration
with our life storytellers about the historical and social context of their life. By the
end we hope the life story becomes the life history because it is located in historical
time and context. Our sequence then moves in this way:
Narration Initial Life Story
Collaboration Subsequent Interview
Location Full Life History
Let me give one concrete example of how location might work in studying
teachersí lives. In the life stories of teachers nowadays the normal storyline is one of
technicians who follow government guidelines and teach a curriculum which is
prescribed by governments or departments of education. The storyline therefore
reflects a particular historical moment where the teacherís work is constructed in a
particular way. If, however, one compares current teacher storylines in England with
the storylines collected 30 or 40 years ago, those stories would be of professionals who
have autonomy and the capacity to decide what curriculum to teach and what content
is organized to carry that curriculum. In seeking to locate the life story of current
teachers, we would have to talk about the ongoing construction of the teachersí work
in a particular way. In coming to understand how contemporary teacherís work
provides a particular work context, we would get some sense of the historical context
of teachersí work and how this is subject to change and transition as the historical
circumstances of schooling changes. Hence in moving from narration through to
location a historical understanding of the teachers work might emerge.
So this is how time and context might emerge within life history research. To
make sure that this temporal aspect is fully engaged within the project, we have
divided our research between life history research and life-course research. In this
way the historical context of learning can be examined either retrospectively or in
contemporary ìreal time.î The retrospective understanding of the learning biogra-
phy can be explored in life history research while the real time understanding of the
ways in which learning biographies are lived can be understood through longitu-
➯
➯
➯
➯➯
➯

The Rise of the Life Narrative
20
dinal life-course research. In this way we set retrospective life history research
against contemporary longitudinal life-course research.
We have summarized the rationale for combining these two approaches in
this way:
The reason for combining the two approaches is not only that it increases the time-
span available for investigation (albeit that the retrospective study of the learning
biography can only be done through the accounts and recollections of participants).
It is also because we believe that the combination of the two approaches allows us
to see more and gain a better understanding than if we would only use one of them.
To put it simply: life-history research can add depth to the interpretation of the
outcomes of longitudinal life-course research, while life-course research can help to
unravel the complexities of life-history research. Each, in other words, is a potential
source for contextualizing and interpreting the findings of the other. (Biesta, G.,
Hodkinson, P., & Goodson, I, 2004)
By moving from life stories towards full life histories and by building in life
course analysis, we maximize the potential for understanding how time and context
impinge on peoplesí ìlearning lives.î Such work then tries to put the individual life
narrative back together with the collective context. In doing so it seeks to heal the
rupture between the individual life narrative and the collective and historical
experience.
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