Journal of Narrative and Life History - Volume 4, Issue 4, 1994

AbstractI use the idea of consumption to discuss questions of agency and purpose in history. History, as a consumer of pasts, is itself an agent in the interpretive strategies employed in the construction of a historical narrative. History also consumes people as it attempts to impose its homogenizing narrative. In these senses, there is purpose: to give order and meaning to—thus prioritizing—certain pasts over others and to define commonality—especially of the nation or nation-state—and thus marginality. This view brings out the historicity of history: that there is always contestation in representations of the past, and that there is considerable variability in how individuals make such history meaningful to themselves. The latter brings out another notion of consumption—that individuals consume history. Which parts of history people imbibe, however, depend on connections with their experience, their own pasts and histories. In terms of pedagogy, we must be aware that objectivistic history often meets resistance, invites parody, or fosters disbelief. If one goal of teaching history is to foster belief in the nation-state, then a monological narrative might not be the best way to accomplish that goal. (History; Education; Nation)

AbstractAn examination of how Native Americans come to be represented in classroom history lessons demonstrates how the shared cultural biases of teachers and students mediate the representation of different racial and ethnic groups in American history. Although multiple representations of Native Americans are present in the curriculum, a romanticized and stereotypical representation of Native Americans as nomadic, buffalo-hunting Plains Indians is privileged over alternative representations in the classroom. This is due not only to the influence of popular images of Indians found in mainstream American culture, but also to the use of a Eurocentric narrative that emphasizes the presence of nomadic Plains Indians in American history while marginalizing the existence of other Native Americans. These findings suggest that efforts to create a multicultural history curriculum through the addition of women and people of color to the existing narrative of American history may do little to challenge the perpetuation of racial and ethnic stereotypes. (Sociology; Education; Culture)

AbstractIndividuals' representations of history involve a process in which narratives provided by the sociocultural setting are appropriated and used in specific settings to produce concrete texts. This process involves various forms of multivoicedness. The distinction is made between heteroglossia and means conflict as forms of multivoicedness, and these two forms are used to analyze a set of written texts produced by college students about the origins of the United States. This analysis indicates that these students relied very heavily on a single basic narrative as a "mediational means," but they invoked it in a range of different ways, thereby generating different forms of multivoicedness. The nature of this multivoicedness is explored in terms of notions of resistance and consumption. (Education; Psychology; Historical Narrative; Multivoicedness)

AbstractWe argue that in order to understand how and why history is taught and learned, it is necessary to distinguish between "official" and "unofficial" history. Using this distinction, we examine differing historical representations of events in 1940 that resulted in Estonia's becoming part of the Soviet Union. Results from interviews with six ethnic Estonians are reported in an attempt to examine the differences between their understanding of the official and unofficial histories of the 1940 events. A basic distinction emerged between the official Soviet history, with its relatively coherent narrative line, and the unofficial history, which seems to consist of a set of unorganized anecdotal stories. We suggest that the unofficial historical representation can be understood as a set of counterclaims to the basic claims included in official history and that the unofficial history is generated through a kind of "hidden dialogicality" with the official one. (Psychology; Education)

AbstractThe domain of narrative is often assumed to be the first extended discourse genre accessible to young children, and a natural mode for representing and remembering information. Ultimately, however, children must move beyond narrative to include other genres within their competency, such as explanation. Furthermore, narrative and explanation share a number of features that might lead one to expect more or less parallel development. We studied the occurrence of narrative and explanatory sequences of talk during mealtimes in 31 lowincome families with preschool-aged children. Narrative and explanatory sequences constituted approximately equal percentages of the total talk, but explanatory sequences were much briefer and more frequent than narrative sequences. Equivalent measures of narrative and explanatory talk showed moderate correlations, suggesting that families that engaged in one type of discourse also engaged in the other; this suggestion was confirmed by the finding that a large proportion of explanatory utterance were also parts of narratives. As 3- and 4-year-olds, children participated more competently in narrative than in explanatory discourse, though they requested many explanations at all ages. (Discourse Genres; Explanation; Development)

AbstractThis article describes the use of the case study method for the investigation of exceptional moral commitment. William Damon and I used the case study method in this research because we were interested in sustained, long-term moral commitment and in the transformation of moral goals over time within the context of life histories, social relationships, and other influences. The study yielded in-depth life history interviews with 23 people who were selected for having worked for many years to address such issues as civil rights, poverty, and peace. Case material was used to illustrate and flesh out a theoretical account of a developmental process called the transformation of goals through social influence. The use of 23 diverse cases also allowed us to identify common characteristics that cut across the interviews. The three main themes that emerged from the case material were certainty, positivity, and unity of self and moral goals. (Psychology; Human Development; Case Study)