“I was my momma baby. I was my daddy gal”

2006 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aline Gubrium
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Narrative Research ◽  
Gender Socialization ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Cultural Discourses ◽  
Strategic Model ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Do So

This paper is inspired by recent trends in narrative research that orient to the meaning-making actions of those involved in describing the life course. Applying concepts of narrative, discourse, and contrast, the complex meaning of growing up is presented by way of Lakeesha’s story, one of the 20 women interviewed for a project on African American gender socialization. Rather than viewing the participant in question as having been subject to the ostensible forces and parameters of socialization, she was offered the opportunity to represent her growing-up experiences in her own terms. She talked herself into being, situating herself as a particular type of women throughout her growing-up story — strategically employing and manipulating particular cultural discourses to do so. Lakeesha’s story is presented in this paper to illustrate a strategic model of narrative activity. In particular, I trace her use of the American Dream to analyze the ways that she situates herself with particular identities linked to local conceptions of successful womanhood. Methodological implications of this approach are considered in the conclusion.

scholarly journals The Ties That Bind

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liz Gloyn ◽  
Vicky Crewe ◽  
Laura King ◽  
Anna Woodham
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Gender Socialization ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Object Interactions ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

Using an interdisciplinary research methodology across three archaeological and historical case studies, this article explores “family archives.” Four themes illustrate how objects held in family archives, curation practices, and intergenerational narratives reinforce a family’s sense of itself: people–object interactions, gender, socialization and identity formation, and the “life course.” These themes provide a framework for professional archivists to assist communities and individuals working with their own family archives. We argue that the family archive, broadly defined, encourages a more egalitarian approach to history. We suggest a multiperiod analysis draws attention to historical forms of knowledge and meaning-making practices over time.

Delicate Years: Children and Identity in Zimbabwean Literature

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Josephine Muganiwa
Keyword(s):  
Growing Up ◽  
Economic Crises ◽  
Child Characters ◽  
The People ◽  
Do So

The paper argues that children face challenges in growing up and fitting into their societies and that these challenges need to be addressed with care. These challenges, which are complicated by the effects of colonialism, war and economic crises in the context of Zimbabwe, are portrayed in the novels Nervous Conditions (Dangarembga 1989), The Book of Not (Dangarembga 2006), The Uncertainty of Hope (Tagwira 2006) and Running with Mother (Mlalazi 2012). In analysing the characters of the children portrayed in these four novels, the vulnerability of children, regardless of their age, is demonstrated. The child characters strive to help their parents and be useful citizens and yet at times this contrasts with their desire to be sheltered and treated as children. This contradiction is best exhibited in teenagers who try to fashion their own identity that is separate from the people around them but who still require guidance to do so.

Charting the moral life courses: A theory of moral development in U.S. evangelical and mainline Protestant cultures

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica McKenzie ◽  
Lene Arnett Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Moral Transgressions ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Analytical Approaches ◽  
Resultant Theory ◽  
Cultural Constructions ◽  
The Relationship

Drawing from qualitative analyses of interviews, ethnographic data, and a review of interdisciplinary literature, this manuscript puts forth a theory of moral life course narratives among U.S. evangelical and mainline Protestants. This theory delineates the relationship between religious worldviews and conceptions of moral behaviors, and the manner in which these worldviews and attendant moral conceptions change across the life course for community members. Grounded theory analyses of 32 participants’ divinity-based moral discourses were interpreted in conjunction with their worldviews, as well as church, home, and school contexts. Analyses indicated that evangelical children highlighted their moral transgressions because they regarded themselves as still quite close to a sinful birth. Evangelical adults, who had been saved and were moving toward God, temporally and spiritually distanced themselves from the morally wrong deeds of their youth. Meanwhile, mainline children and adolescents rarely reasoned about their moral experiences in terms of divinity. This finding is understood in light of their church’s emphasis on developing an individualized relationship with God over time. The study and resultant theory elaborate cultural constructions and transmissions of moral life course narratives that, in turn, provide a framework for understanding when, why, and how divinity enters into moral meaning making for cultural community members. We conclude by advocating for theoretical, methodological, and analytical approaches that expose the cultural nature of developmentally dynamic moral selves.

scholarly journals Multimodal metaphors: from language as a condition to text to the notion of texture as a meaning-making semiotic resource

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 893
Author(s):  
Clarice Gualberto ◽  
Záira Santos ◽  
Ana Clara Meira
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social Semiotics ◽  
Concepts And Categories ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Do So

Abstract: In this paper, we attempt to provide some ways of thinking about text, relating it to the concept of metaphors, multimodality and texture. Our aim is to develop new insights in meaning making and communication more generally, by bringing examples of memes; a relatively new genre, often seen on social media posts. To do so, we discuss the notion of text (HALLIDAY; HASAN, 2002; BEAUGRANDE, 1997; KRESS, 2010) and then, we discuss texture as a semiotic resource for the production of texts and its metaphors (DJONOV; VAN LEEUWEN, 2011). To exemplify some concepts and categories, we explore memes, seeking to understand their constitution as well as their qualities and potential meanings of visual textures deployed in the text to make meaning material through multimodal metaphors.Keywords: text; texture; social semiotics; multimodal metaphors.Resumo: Neste artigo, pretendemos propor algumas maneiras para se pensar a noção de texto, relacionando-a aos conceitos de metáfora, multimodalidade e textura. Nosso objetivo é desenvolver novos insights a respeito da produção de sentido e da comunicação de forma geral. Como exemplo, trazemos  memes com o bordão “É verdade esse bilete”. Como esse gênero é relativamente novo e frequentemente visto em posts nas redes sociais, discutimos a noção de texto (HALLIDAY; HASAN, 2002; BEAUGRANDE, 1997; KRESS, 2010) e de textura como um recurso semiótico para a produção de textos e suas metáforas (DJONOV; VAN LEEUWEN, 2011). Para exemplificar algumas noções e categorias, exploramos os memes, buscando compreender como eles se constituem, assim como suas qualidades e seus possíveis sentidos de texturas visuais utilizadas para produção de metáforas multimodais.Palavras-chave: texto; textura; semiótica social; metáforas multimodais.

Preparing to Say “I Do”

2019 ◽  
pp. 196-214
Author(s):  
Courtney Ann Irby
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Preparation Process ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Marriage Preparation ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Cultural Discourses ◽  
Lay Persons ◽  
Catholic Culture ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Western Washington

Since its beginning in the postwar era, marriage preparation has enabled parishes to mediate both Catholic theology and broader cultural messages surrounding marriage. Drawing on archival research on two important Catholic family movements from the postwar era and ethnographic observation of marriage preparation in several contemporary parishes in Western Washington, this chapter highlights parish efforts to collectively engage in meaning-making by transmitting a Catholic vision of marriage to individual parishioners. While the vision of a “good” family has changed little from the postwar era to today, therapeutic cultural discourses about self-development and changing marital norms have entered into marriage preparation. Moreover, shifts in the structure of religious authority mean that who does the speaking has changed drastically. Lay persons are increasingly empowered to produce local Catholic culture and make sense of Catholic teachings through the marriage preparation process.

The Gender Socialization of Children Growing Up in Nontraditional Families

2019 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 115-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Bertrand
Keyword(s):  
Role Model ◽  
Gender Socialization ◽  
Gender Role Attitudes ◽  
Gender Attitudes ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Nontraditional Families ◽  
Working Mother ◽  
Childhood Exposure ◽  
Intact Families ◽  
Married Mother

We study how childhood exposure to a nontraditional family (a working married mother, a married mother that is the primary breadwinner, or a non-married mother) affects gender role attitudes in young adulthood. Boys and girls develop more liberal gender attitudes when they spend more time with a non-married mother. In intact families, boys' gender attitudes, more than girls', appear positively influenced by the role model of a working mother, especially if she is also the primary breadwinner. However, the effect of childhood exposure to a mother with greater economic power on boys' gender attitudes is smaller in more gender conservative families.

Growing Up and Growing Old: Ageing and Dependency in the Life Course.

1994 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 704
Author(s):  
Helena Znaniecka Lopata ◽  
Jenny Hockey ◽  
Allison James
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
The Life Course

scholarly journals A manifesto for critical narrative research and pedagogy for/with young children: Teacher and child as critical annalist

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Michael O’Loughlin
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Narrative Research ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Cultural Meaning ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Students As Teachers ◽  
Curriculum Making ◽  
Narrative Mode

Abstract In this essay I pose the question of whether it might be possible to articulate a collaborative, critical narrative mode of research in which teachers and students come together using a critical and analytic epistemology to engage in adventurous pedagogy. This approach has echoes of Freire’s “teachers-as-students and students- -as-teachers,” but elaborates the Freirean metaphor to include conceptions of emotion, creativity, and incorporation of the latent historical subjectivities of teachers and students in the process. Contrary to the deadening, circumscribed epistemology of putatively “evidence-based” pedagogies, in which teachers and children are expected to check their cultural meaning-making capacities and their emotional investments at the door, this is a plea for a regenerative, engaged, local curriculum making process. As I note in the essay, “This is a strategy that cannot work in the service of utilitarian modes of education that are focused only on value (cf. Appiah, 2015). It can only work for forms of schooling that seek to foster values of receptivity, cultural respect, open-mindedness, and critical imaginaries. In these coldly utilitarian times we need to provide leadership to progressively minded teachers to allow them to develop, document, and disseminate such practices.”

scholarly journals Rethinking Materiality In Pre-Tertiary Studio Art Education In Ghana

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Kwame Opoku-Bonsu
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Art Education ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Studio Art ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Art Students ◽  
Education In Ghana ◽  
Do So

<p><em>This paper explores the conventional artist and environment connections, and argues that, environment that produce the Senior High School student do so with peculiar material affinities and competences ripe for 21<sup>st</sup> century art. The culture of obliging student to a few institutionalised media like clay, dyes and paints in the studio based art disciplines inhibit the numerous possibilities available, and confines art education to limited aptitudes and few institutionally expected expressions in pre-tertiary art education in Ghana. Using content analysis, the paper examines the Art Curricula and WAEC examination questions for Art Students at the SHS level. It recommends that, curricula and examination item reviews, as well as the incorporation of visual and material culture into artistic processes through democratization and participations of candidates’ cultural backgrounds, will usher in an art education premised on meaning making and conception, and institutionally groomed cultural ambassadors with significant material and visual diversities and competences.</em></p>

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document