Finding the Narrative in Narrative Research

Author(s): Cathy A. Coulter

Source: Educational Researcher, Vol. 38, No. 8 (Nov., 2009), pp. 608-611
Published by: American Educational Research Association
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Response to Comments
Finding the Narrative in Narrative Research
Cathy A. Coulter
The author responds to comments by Barone (2009), Clandinin and
Murphy (2009), and M.W. Smith (2009) on "The Construction Zone:
Literary Elements in Narrative Research" (Coulter & M. L. Smith,
2009). She clarifies issues regarding point of view, authorial surplus,
narrative coherence, and the relational qualities of narrative research.
She maintains that the relational, the ethical, and the aesthetic are not
mutually exclusive. Literary elements can function to support col
laborative processes while attending to the aesthetic qualities that
invite the reader into the storied account.
Keywords: narrative research; qualitative research; research
methodology
O
ur initial article in this issue of Educational Researcher
(Coulter & Smith, 2009) has a narrative of its own?
one that stretches over more than 3 years and includes
responses from scores of readers, editors, critics, and champions.
Throughout this history, we clung tight to a singular purpose:
to describe and illustrate with pieces of text some literary prac
tices useful for crafting results into narratives. The readership we
wanted to reach was education researchers in general, many of
whom are unfamiliar with the rich literature on narrative
research and literary practices. In this literature there is much
about theory of narrative and little about the simple definition
of narrative or its aspects. We wanted to locate the "narrative" in
narrative research by drawing on narratology and the practices
of writers.
Many complications troubled the plot line of that article. These
can be categorized in relation to reviewer requests to (a) expand our
purpose, for example, to defend the enterprise of narrative research as
a legitimate form of research; (b) narrow our audience to narra
tive specialists and distance ourselves from other researchers; and
(c) defend the examples we chose as legitimate forms of narrative
research. Generalist researchers seemed to think we were too literary;
literary theorists thought we were too bound by research conventions.
We did what we could to accommodate these requests. But
expanding our scope to include postmodern and poststructuralist
theories, issues of authorial excess and hypercongruence, and the
question whether participant experience or social justice is the
Educational Researcher,Vol. 38, No. 8, pp. 608-61 I
10.3102/0013189X09354124
? 2009 AERA, http://er.aera.net
608] | EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
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canonical quality of a narrative would hav
generous page limits allowed by the journal
We thank every single reader along the
these readers not only for their investmen
intellectual contributions, but also because
every piece of writing is nothing until it
readers bring multiple readings.
Nevertheless, to some readings I must re
Michael W Smith (2009; this issue of Educ
pp. 603-607) writes that we "make claims f
narrative research as compared with othe
research" (p. 603). Yet an examination of ou
arly work would reveal a wide, even cathol
Indeed, claims of superiority for any given r
be held up to critical scrutiny. We did, howe
conceptual space of narrative research ove
standard and qualitative research in impor
explored. Narrative and arts-based forms of
wide frontier of possibility in social science
Both Smith's article and Clandinin and M
issue of Educational Researcher, pp. 598-60
of-view issue. Smith begins his comments w
we construct point of view as a rigid categor
choice of one point of view (e.g., first perso
omniscient third person) will have a static,
fact, although we did introduce various asp
and the trappings of each as they intersect w
extensively qualified how point of view can
the use of other literary elements such as narr
and authorial distance. Smith, quoting Lan
additional factors that mitigate point of v
and stance?and mentions Lanser's "33 d
within these three superordinate factors" (
applaud the narrative examples that Smith
hope that other narrative researchers will
and Booth's (1983) Rhetoric of Fiction. I h
experiment with the "complex of factors"
satisfaction of the goal of the "communicati
message is "received, interpreted, and valu
tions are of Lanser, from Smith, p. 604).
Clandinin and Murphy, too, take up the d
view and, in particular, of how use of the om
narrator "distances the researcher from an
with both the participants and the field texts" (p. 601). Again,
I concur. Indeed, I see literary elements as inclusive of the rela
tional, and it is this ethical consideration that prompted our
exploration of literary elements in the first place. I also believe
that there is a place for third person in narrative research, just as
there is a place for distance and detachment. Third person can
take the reader from scene to scene, filling in and generalizing the
details that otherwise might be left out. Furthermore, sometimes
choosing a detached perspective to present particularly dramatic
events provides a necessary buffer. One such event is when Darek
(see Coulter, 2003) is turned away at the door of a party hosted
by his football buddies: To describe that scene with as much emo
tion as the experience itself generated might have reduced the
account to bathos. On the assumption that readers can fill in
emotional gaps, the detached perspective may be preferable if the
aim is to make the material accessible without melodrama.
Clandinin and Murphy take great care to situate their beliefs
within ontological and epistemological assumptions. Central to
those beliefs is their statement, "Narrative research is relational
research" (p. 599). By implication, in their view, ethical standards
must be carefully and explicitly examined. I share Clandinin and
Murphy's concern. Indeed, my research spans nearly 15 years of
collaborative work and is centered in caring relationships and the
communal desire to explore and understand both researchers'
and participants' collective and individual experiences.
I am grateful that Clandinin and Murphy challenge us with the
notion of "in relation," which could be encountered in a number
of writings, such as Richardson's (1993) study with Louisa May or
Barones (2001) featured study in Touching Eternity. "In relation"
refers to researchers' time spent with participants but also to the
nature of their involvement and collaboration with participants.
The obligations of researchers to participants differ in degree and
kind, and there can be longitudinal implications (Craig & Huber,
2007). Clandinin and Murphy remind us that in narrative
research, ethics are, and should remain, paramount. As I contem
plate these and other questions, however, I believe that we can
turn to the art form in which we center ourselves for possible
answers, without assuming that the relational, the ethical, and the
aesthetic are mutually exclusive.
According to Clandinin and Murphy, when Clandinin and
Connelly are asked, "Why narrative inquiry?" they answer:
"Because experience" (p. 601). This is also the answer to the ques
tion "Why literary elements?" Should we not consider the kinds
of experiences that readers construct out of narratives? At best,
the writer creates a vicarious experience (Eisner, 1998; Stake,
2000) that bears a tenuous connection to those constructed and
co-constructed by researcher and participant. The vicarious expe
rience, I submit, has to do with choices of literary elements to tell
the stories that the reader has not lived directly. The reader's vicar
ious experience of Bowden's (2004) text, for example, includes
both intellectual and emotional aspects. The judicious use of lit
erary elements can create a compelling, persuasive, believable
account. Doing so makes it possible for the reader to be a part of
the experience vicariously and the text to be read "doubly ... [so
that] social change may be fostered both on the inside and on the
outside" (Tom Barone, 2009, this issue of Educational Researcher,
p. 595). We can speak, as Clandinin and Murphy write, "in two
directions" (p. 600). When we study "people in relation who are
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studying the experiences of people in relation" (Clandinin &
Murphy, p. 600), are we not ethically obligated to bring our col
laborative understandings forward for others to experience, as
well? For, as Barone says, "if social change?including educa
tional reform?is to occur through the work of narrative com
posers it will surely be the readers and not the researcher who are
the ultimate agents ofthat change" (p. 596). If we limit ourselves
to the research context, including the experience and the rela
tional, then collaborative "findings" will lack the valence required
for the deeper understanding that promotes social reform. After
all, "story," as Connelly and Clandinin (2006) write, "is a portal
through which a person enters the world and by which their
experience of the world is interpreted and made personally mean
ingful" (p. 375).
This brings me to another reading by Smith, who asserts: "David
did indeed object to how his story was rendered, and Coulter
and Smith make it clear that they think his objection was wrong"
(p. 606). In fact, as we report, David did not object to how his story
was rendered. Had he objected, I would have revised the story
according to his instructions. David was active in the process of
constructing his story, and requests for revisions were always hon
ored. Moreover, I realize that participants may be hesitant to dis
agree with researchers' perspectives; thus ethical concern must be
meticulously exercised in the relational elements of researcher
participant discourse. In this, I agree with Clandinin and Murphy:
The ethics of narrative research should be the highest priority.
Polyphony
In regard to polyphony, Smith quotes Bakhtin (1984) on
Dostoyevsky:
The direct and fully weighted signifying power of the characters'
words destroys the monologic plane of the novel and calls forth
an unmediated response?as if the character were not an object of
authorial discourse, but rather a fully valid, autonomous carrier of
his own individual word. (p. 605; I added the italics)
In the polyphonic novel, the reader and the author conspire
(Barone, 2000) with one another; the reader understands that the
author has written the narrative but suspends knowledge of
authorial discourse. It is this conspiracy that intrigues us with its
possibilities in narrative research. Yet the reader-writer exchange
in a work that is not polyphonic operates similarly: Readers must
also cipher the multiple levels of an interpretive novel.
Furthermore, whether a narrative is polyphonic or heteroglossic,
we still have the opportunity presented by multidimensional
images that need to be resolved through interpretation. Such
images " [do] not proffer summative conclusions" but rather are
"more formative ... in [their] appeal, tacitly promoting deeper
thought and extended conversations about that which has been
(re)experienced by . . . readers" (Barone, 2009, p. 594).
As for authorial surplus, the researcher/writer can include ele
ments to indicate that she herself is not entirely trustworthy.
Smith points out the example of Darek from my (Coulter, 2003)
study. It is true: I did intend the interpretation that Darek's iden
tity shifted as he was granted membership on the football team
and, as the data indicated, was subsequently excluded from the
ESL group. However, there were other ways in which I layered in
unreliability of the narrator. Thus a piece does not need to be
NOVEMBER 2009 609
polyphonie to be interpretive. Interpretation can be encouraged
by problematizing the researcher's voice, thus mitigating rela
tional aspects to help collaborators navigate ethical issues. In fact,
researchers should exercise a degree of authorial surplus.
Researchers report (ethical, collaborative, relational) findings,
but do not disclose every byte of data. Just as a conventional table
may compress quantitative data, so can a story sketch a larger
body of information. In her discussion of social-realist film as
research, Woo (2008) writes:
Validity does not derive from the transparency of the methodology
but rather... from the film's ability to bring audiences to "suspend
their disbelief" by making its methods invisible. Audiences should
not... have to be aware that the daytime scene they are watching
was actually shot at night with a full bank of lights approximating
daylight, or that boom microphones are always hovering just
above the actors' heads. . . . With social-realist narrative films,
validity is established less by the dispassionate dissection of meth
ods and data than by the emotional resonance (or its absence) of
the story and characters for audiences, (p. 325)
A narrative construction can be interpretive without being poly
phonic, and we contend that "authorial surplus" is not the control
ling issue. A narrative, like a social-realist film, can stand on its own.
I am not opposed to authors' providing "sample analytic
memos detailing one or more of the critical choices [they have]
made" or posting "more expansive details of their methods on a
website and referring] readers to it," as Smith (p. 606) suggests.
Indeed, Smith's point is well taken. As he says, "Authors are not
granted unlimited pages for the amount of methodological
detail" (p. 606) that some readers may want. If narrative research
ers are to experiment with such forms, as Smith points out, edi
tors and reviewers must be open not only to alternative forms but
also to myriad page-lengths.
Coherence
I noted some disagreements among respondents regarding the
place of coherence in narrative constructions. Smith points out,
"The need to make a relevant point means that narrators tell
coherent stories" (p. 605). Yet Clandinin and Murphy state:
The seduction of coherence?coherence in the narrative text itself,
and the imposition of coherence by the researcher on his or her own
experience and on those of the participants?is an aspect of narrative
research to be wary of when producing our research texts, (p. 601 )
The apparent contradiction may come from the intersection of
narratives in fiction with those in nonfiction?the intersection of
nonresearch narratives with narratives based in research. We
understand the need to "artfully hold open both the beginning
and endings of the narratives presented," to borrow the words of
Pinnegar & Daynes (2007; quoted by Clandinin and Murphy,
p. 600). The reason, as Clandinin and Murphy maintain, is in part
the importance of offering room for reader interpretation and in
part what they call the "nature of storied experience" (p. 600).
Narratives are told from a particular place in time. Although
changes in the time of retrospection can be indicated structur
ally in a narrative, the narration itself operates from a point in
time. A first-person narrator, for example, is telling the story from
his or her perspective as a young man, or a child, or a murdered
girl looking down from heaven (Sebold, 2004). Participants who
T??] EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
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collaborate on research studies about their experiences may alter
their interpretations over time.
Experiences and our stories about experiences endure and
change. For a narrative researcher in a longitudinal study, the data
change with the changing interpretations of the participants. In
order to "finish" a narrative construction, an arbitrary point in
time is selected, and a point in time before that is the filter
through which the narrative is told. Coherence is a matter of
complex balancing, because readers must, at a minimum, sus
pend disbelief that the construction offered constitutes an experi
ence that has ended. On the other hand, without a degree of
coherence, there may be no opportunity to suspend belief.
Readers can be surprised, and they can also weave together what
the clever storyteller has pulled apart (think of the chronological
time versus story time in a movie like Pulp Fiction, or the trick
ending of the John Fowles novel The French Lieutenants Woman).
Clandinin and Murphy's concern that the researcher might
impose some moral on the story from outside the context of the
teller, essentially colonizing the story, is an important consider
ation. In stating that "constructing a narrative almost always
involves invoking some theme or moral" (p. 585), we did not
mean to imply that the narrative imposes a theme or moral.
Barone (2000) discusses the qualitative problem-solving process
(Ecker, 1966) in which a theme, metaphor, or "pervasive quality"
(Barone, 2000, p. 195) emerges from the research process.
Polkinghorne (1995) discusses this in terms of emplotment. In
other words, themes are not imposed; they emerge from the data
in the authentic practice of narrative research.
Writing to theme can create boring narratives, a point that
Smith takes up when noting that cultural expectations of narra
tives include some sort of "surprise" or "frame break." Something
"newsworthy." In Darek's story, for example, the "ordinary" might
be that he tried out for football and made the team. The surprise,
then, is that once he made it on the football team, the ESL kids
began to exclude him. Or it might be that, although his teammates
accepted and even cared for him, he was not allowed to participate
in a privately hosted team party because he did not look like a
Northwest High student. These events may fit into the category
of newsworthy. They were experiences that Darek narrated,
believed, and interpreted, as I documented. The events in question
were the recorded data to which a systematic analysis was applied.
In arriving at my interpretations, I considered both confirming
and disconfirming evidence from the study as a whole. I presented
the interpretations as a story that the reader was invited to believe.
However, in other sections of the construction, I invited the reader
to read with suspicion, and I even demonstrated narrator unreli
ability. In this sense, deeper coherence is characterized by an effec
tive juxtaposition of elements that may be coherent or, alternatively,
may offer an illusion of coherence.
Like any research act, choosing literary elements is a practice.
To ask whether the researcher imposed a frame, a plot twist, or a
happy ending that falsely represents the data is like asking the
meta-analyst whether she sampled all the available studies on a
topic, or asking whether the qualitative researcher considered
contrary data to test his assertions. Making the right choices is no
guarantee of truth or quality. In the end, though, the practitioner
asks where the data have led her, whether there is a reading public
or a friendly journal or a socially just policy outcome.
Areas of Confluence
Among the responses to our article, I see many promising conflu
ences and points of departure for further dialogue. For example,
I am happy that Clandinin and Murphy have addressed ethical
considerations so eloquendy and passionately. We must always con
duct research under the banner that reads "Do no harm." Because
of the emotional impact of telling, writing, and reading stories,
narrative researchers are deeply obligated to their participants.
Barones discussion of socially minded researchers "intervening
in history," of narrative researchers whose aim is to "enhance social
justice?and to do so through storytelling that is artful rather than
scientific" (p. 593)?reminds us of substantive goals, such as the
illumination of "links between political forces and disenfranchised
selves" (Barone, p. 595). Smiths discussion of authorial surplus
reminds us that we are working within a community that may be
dubious about the potential of narrative methodology (e.g., the
use of literary elements) in advancing education research. Narrative
researchers have experimented with ways to disclose methodology
without infringing on the interpretive potential within the narra
tive construction. Richardson (1995) has used "writing-stories" or
"stories of how we construct... our texts" (p. 189) that are either
written alongside or published separately from the narrative text.
Barone (2001) layers in varying lenses?different sections in his
book?from which to interpret his study. Two-column approaches
have been used, in which the researcher writes parallel accounts
that run side by side (e.g., Lather & Smithies, 1997; Schultz &
Banks, 2009; Schultz, Baricovich, & McSurley, 2009). These
kinds of creative approaches do not detract from powerful narra
tive constructions and may help bridge the way toward more
widespread acceptance of stand-alone narrative constructions.
Exchanges on narrative research such as this one arranged by
the editors of EducationalResearcher'will contribute to our under
standings of the vast possibilities in narrative and other arts-based
forms of research. I am pleased to be part of a discussion in this
venue and am hopeful that interested education researchers will
take up these issues and challenges in their own work. Such con
tributions may bring us closer to understanding the everyday
lives of school people in vivid, experiential ways.
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AUTHOR
CATHY A. COULTER is an assistant professor in the College of
Manuscript received August 2,2009
Revision received September 18,2009
Accepted September 18,2009

NOVEMBER 2009 [IN

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