Capítulo tercero: obligaciones con cláusula penal

The gathering of stories as a means of understanding individual responses has become a recognized qualitative research method providing connections

between theories and practice (Connelly and Clandinin, 2000, Goodson, 2003). However, the power of narratives can appear fragmented when the data set is constructed as a ‘case study’ often because only snippets of transcript are used to present the data or third person accounts are constructed. A sense of the

whole person can be lost. For this reason I chose to present first person accounts using the women’s own words, from their perspectives, in co- constructed case stories.

Interpretation not only makes a reading but makes a writing – the linguistic turn whereby a narrative analysis forms another narrative that, in order to become a fully-fledged story, needs to be emplotted. ‘Theory is the plot of a dissertation’ (Czarniawska, 2004:101). In co-constructing the stories feminist theory

influenced the process, creating an equal partnership in the gathering and the telling. My part in the co-construction of the stories, could be described as the plot. At the interview stage I was struck by the women’s sense of purpose and agency, and decided to honour this with a critical realist lens in the distilling of the transcripts into stories.

There are well- known difficulties, as discussed above, involved in identifying emerging themes and I wished to avoid a naive realist or emancipatory position of ‘giving voice ' to powerless participants. I decided therefore to attempt to distil a whole narrative for each respondent as a means of discussing the

interconnectedness of events, realities, meanings and experiences (both my own and the respondents).

This approach has difficulties in as much as everything in the data appears relevant and there are clearly decisions and choices being made in the distilling of a two hour interview transcript into a short story.

The issue of crisis of representation arises in narrative research. I dealt with this through a process of co-construction with my participants at every stage. The interview accounts were recorded, professionally transcribed, and then distilled through the process of co-construction. My respondents were shown the

transcripts. The first stage was to identify topics in the account which appeared to have particular significance to each of my respondents, often by the length of time spent on it – and/or how that topic re-occurred in the account. These topics appeared as pivotal experiences and/or decision points in their account of their careers in Higher Education. I then produced a draft which was sent to

The strength of my methodology is that it allowed the participants to talk about the things that matter to them in an open and self-directed way.

In this way the process of story-making and production of case stories in my thesis can be seen partly as a process of analysis, in that together we decided the most relevant parts the text. My respondents also saw the transcripts. However, I did not involve the respondents in the interpretative part of the analysis – although I asked them all if they would like to be involved. All were happy for their accounts to become my stories at the point of reflection following agreement on the text. The respondents did not see each other’s stories. The theoretical lens critical realism guided my part in the co-construction of the stories, to reflect the strong agency in the women’s accounts. The lens of postructuralism was not applied until my interpretation and analysis of the stories.

My various drafts of the whole narrative were presented to the Ed.D cohort at Sussex and a number conferences. I used these occasions to get feedback on methodology and the theoretical frameworks I planned to use in the

interpretation.

I have not attempted to fictionalise the accounts as in the approach developed by Clough (2002). The transcripts were reconstructed into first person accounts by selectively using the actual words from the transcripts. I correspond with my participants at each stage of the drafting and invited them to contribute.

However, apart from matters of syntax, no major problems were raised and my participants were happy with the accounts which now appear in the thesis.

I precede the case stories with short profiles of my participants in Chapter 4 in order to provide a backdrop of relative stability to my meaning-making of the experiences of multiple selves at work over time. This approach is not taken to represent objectivity (i.e. a third person objective account to set against subjective first person accounts); neither are the profiles an attempt to produce a picture of ‘coherent selves’ from an ‘unchanging core’. As McNay (2008:116) has said, coherence of the self ‘rather emerges from the attempt, on the part of individuals and societies to make sense of the temporality of existence’.

2.4 Summary

In this chapter I have presented the methodological approach to my research focus and process. My thesis presents the stories of five women academics making sense of their lives as they negotiate their career trajectories, followed by my interpretation of what this tells us about the ways in which agency is constructed, enacted, the limiting social conditions which impact on these trajectories, and the implications for Academic Development .

I have included my reflections at the end of each story in Chapters 5-9 to add further methodological context and apply the perspectives of Archer and Butler to contrast the dynamic relationships between gender, structure and agency and the implications for Academic Development.

The next chapter will review themes in the literature, in addition to those

included in this chapter, that have led to the development of my ontological and epistemological stance and the relationships – often in tension - with my