A Return to the Gold Standard? Questioning the Future of Narrative Construction as Educational Research

Abstract

Narrative construction is an approach to social research in which data are configured into any of a variety of diachronic, or storied, formats. Having recently gained popularity, this approach is now in danger of marginalization (along with other qualitative and quantitative forms of social research) as a result of politically charged attempts to reinstitute a narrow methodological orthodoxy. In an attempt to prompt discussion about the future of this inquiry approach, the author asks questions that highlight recurring issues within ongoing conversations among educational researchers who advocate and/or engage in the construction of narratives. These questions relate to the political character of stories, fictionalization, audience, modalities of representation, quality control, research purpose, and strategies for maintaining and enlarging the space for narrative construction as a qualitative research approach within an era of political retrogression.