Laura Mazzoli-Smith, Newcastle University Presentation at ESREA European Society for Research on the Education of Adults, Life History and Biography Network, March 2015

1. ESREA – European Society for Research on the Education of Adults
Life History and Biography Network March 2015
Creating a transformational space through
narrative:
looked after young people tell their
life stories
Laura Mazzoli Smith, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK
laura.mazzolismith@newcastle.ac.uk

2. Introduction
• Research study on a creative widening participation project
run between three universities in the north-east of England
• Minimal body of research on educationally successful care
leavers
• Life story narration to a public audience and subsequent life
history interviews
• Normative framing of these successful life stories
• Provision of such a space where one group of young adults
who succeeded can address another group at great risk of
dropping out is very unusual

3. The life stories
• Bobby aged 21. Family emigrated from Africa - Bobby
removed from them by social services in the UK a year
later. One main foster family and no further contact with
birth family.
• Duncan aged 22. Chose to move out of home in his early
teens and subsequently lived with both a grand-parent
and in foster care.
• Alicja aged 21. Removed from a single mother in early
teens . Had a number of care placements including one
longer term foster placement.

4. Thematic life story analysis
Theme similar features of each:
1) Detachment and critical reflection on younger
self; metaphorically and actually a new
vantage point and a place of arrival.
2) Narratives balanced individualistic and
deterministic aspects with the fragility and
contingency of life.
3) Gratitude/indebtedness to significant others -
family, carers, teachers.

5. Narrative analysis of life histories
1) Critical detachment – spatial metaphors
(Bobby):
‘I used to be stubborn, wouldn’t listen, quick tempered.
I got angry a lot quicker until I got introduced to them.
And usually when you get introduced to a foster parent,
like they take you in, you sit on like a different seat to
everyone else, if that makes sense… So she [foster
mother] put me on a table and she brought me up as
one of her own kids’.
‘They gave me a view of life, really’.

6. Narrative analysis of life histories
1) Critical detachment – narrative learning:
Bobby: I never used to like tell them my story or, I learned a
lot of sense when I started telling my story. I don’t know
when that came about but I’m glad it did because most
people that are care leavers, they’re afraid of telling people
what they’ve been through. Sometimes, you kind of have
to embrace it. And if you embrace it, you get rid of it.
Laura: Yeah, that’s really interesting. You kind of take
ownership of it rather than let it own you. That’s really
interesting.
Bobby: Wow! Like a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have been
talking like this, at all.

7. Narrative analysis of life histories
2) Agency and contingency – optimism (Bobby):
‘But you get what you’re given, and what you’re
given, you have to make the most of it.’
Linking fear to failure (Duncan):
‘I have always had this overwhelming fear of
regretting things and I don’t want to look back
and say I didn’t do this or I didn’t do that and I
feel like that is one of the scariest things I can
think of and you are so helpless you can’t do
anything about it...’

8. Narrative analysis of life histories
2) Agency and contingency - non-conformism (Bobby) :
‘Why would you conform to that instead of being as
anyone else? You’re a normal human being, you just
can’t let labels drag you down.’
Agency developed in the context of others (Alicja):
‘I think you sort of distance yourself from people in a way
and I think that is when you start to rely on
yourself…my mum doesn’t even care if I am going to
school right now…it was my responsibility…it became
my responsibility.’

9. Narrative analysis of life histories
3) Relationships and collective action -
indebtedness and external referents (Bobby):
‘When growing up, one, I’ve no recollection of my parents
or family, you know, all I remember is my mum’s name
and what I told her of being an accountant, and who my
brother is and my sister, and that was it, really’.
‘She brings you up like her own son. Honestly, like that
family gave me an idea of what family is...That’s why I’m
forever in their debt. Because I remember promising her
that when I get older, I’d buy her a nice mansion…’

10. Narrative analysis of life histories
3) Relationships and collective action - narrative
learning (Duncan):
‘…obviously listening to the two… I definitely was lucky
to be put in with the family that I was and I am
massively thankful for it because...I probably
wouldn’t be at uni if it wasn’t for them’.
Reciprocity (Alicja):
‘…she has so much faith in me and I had just as much
back as what she gave me I gave back to her.’

11. A transformational space
• Narratives which normalize achievement,
problematizing the label;
• a lack of intervention by professionals or
researchers in the life story session;
• narratives which link individual agency, collective
action and social contingency;
• the making available of non-normative stories
and space for collective narrative learning;
• the recognition of and learning from significant
others.

12. 1. Normalizing achievement/
problematizing the label
• Bobby described the ability to be what you want
to be as both ‘normal’, and ‘a human right’
• ‘Excluded’, ‘marginalised’ or ‘at risk’ label, but
desire for normality hence oppositional narrative
• Narrative stance symbolically shifts Bobby from
the category of an extraordinary achiever to a
normally aspiring young person, speaking to
others in the room
‘Decreased agency through learning occurs when
people learn that things are too difficult’ (Biesta,
2008: 20)

13. 2. Lack of intervention by professionals
/researchers
• Novelty of narrating life stories and of context
• Professionals and researchers were not
involved in mediating the public telling of the
life stories
• Unscripted, (unknown – few scripts to draw
from), freedom
• Narrative qualities such as authenticity,
immediacy increased the learning potential of
the narratives

14. 3. Linking agency and contingency
• No prioritising of either individual agency of the tellers,
the support of others/organisations, or contingent
facts as being the main drivers of success
• Inter-dependence and interplay of agency, collective
action, and structure made sense to narrators
• Life stories created ‘horizons for action’, structure both
enabling and constraining
• Problem with interventions which individualise
engagement/opportunity/risk/outcome; life stories
distance themselves from this normative
individualising of educational success and failure

15. 4. Non-normative stories and space for
collective narrative learning
• Non-normative life stories offered alternative
possible futures and different scripts, unknown
and possibly also unimagined
• Narrative learning is a prerequisite for alternative
narratives- need spaces for reflection and
communication (Alheit and Dausien, 1999)
• Private ‘problems’ become collective issues
(Bauman, 2000)
• Narrative capital (Goodson et al., 2010);
‘capacity’ to learn from one’s life not fixed but
can be learned (Biesta, 2008)

16. 5. Recognising and learning from
significant others
• Focus on significant others /social relationships invites
listeners to re-envision their roles and sense of agency
• Space of narrative imagination, making strange that
which is familiar (Andrews, 2014)
• Multiple levels of narrative learning all depend on the
social space of the narratives; the tellers learning from
their lives, the tellers learning from significant others,
the audience in the room learning from the tellers, the
audience reflecting on and learning from their own
lives and significant others

17. Conclusion
• Not just individual stories of success but communal
narratives of how particular systemic and relational
beliefs and practices can realign normative educational
trajectories
• Public narrating of alternative discourses, reworking
who has authority to speak and what can be said and
thought
• Not just policy makers/researchers who should listen to
these life stories/histories, but impact when young
people speak directly to others currently in care and
the adults who are closest to them

18. References
• Alheit, P. and Dausein, B. (2000) ‘Biographicity’ as a basic
resource of lifelong learning. In P. Alheit et al. (eds), Lifelong
Learning Inside and Outside Schools. Roskilde: Roskilde
University.
• Andrews, M. (2014) Narrative Imagination and Everyday
Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity.
• Biesta, Gert (2008). Learning Lives: Learning, Identity and
Agency in the Life-course: Full Research Report ESRC End of
Award Report, RES-139-25-0111. Swindon: ESRC.
• Goodson, I. F., Biesta, G., Tedder, M., and Adair, N. (2010).
Narrative Learning. London and New York: Routledge.