ABSTRACT
Our use of the terms ‘narrative’ and ‘story’ draws on distinctions that other researchers have developed. In social science research the two terms are often collapsed with no great loss of precision. Polkinghorne (1988, p. 13), for example, reviews possible uses of both terms and concludes by treating them as equivalent-a position close to that adopted by Carr (1986). We have an inbetween usage. When referring to participant situations (such as classroom field records and interview data) we tend to use ‘story’ to talk about particular situations and ‘narrative’ to refer to longer term life events. Everyday speech patterns modify this loose distinction and we would more often say ‘deliberately storying and restorying one’s life…’ rather than ‘deliberately narrating and renarrating one’s life…’. We would, however, follow Carr and Polkinghorne here and treat the two expressions as equivalent. When we refer to research, research method and researchers we use the term ‘narrative’ exclusively. For example, we would say ‘narrative researchers, as Mishler (1986) shows, are engaged in the collection of stories when conducting interviews’. Our ideas on narrative method are elaborated in Connelly and Clandinin (1990).
