The Personal Narratives of Students Attending a Pupil Referral Unit

1. The Personal Narratives of Students Attending a Pupil Referral Unit Dr. Shaalan Farouk shaalan.farouk@roehampton.ac.uk

2. In this Session: • Present background information to the projects, • Present the initial findings from the first part of the project • Engage in a discussion of possible ways forward and your possible involvement in second part of the project.

3. Overview • 2 year project which in July 2012 is at the end of the first year and the first part of the project: • Part 1: Data Collection, Analysis and consultation with teachers working and other staff in PRUs • Part 2: Intervention by teachers and other educationalists in PRUs

4. Background information: • Number of students attending PRU has increased by almost 100% between 1999 and 2009 (from 8,260, to 15, 370).(DCSF, 2009) • A disproportionate number of students obtain very limited qualifications (DCSF 2008) • Attainment is the strongest indicator of young people not being in further education, training or employment (DCSF, 2009).

5. Background to the project The assumption of narrative therapy and psychological narrative research is that: “We create ourselves in the telling of stories” (Milner and O’Byrne, 2002)

6. “Engaging in narrative practices, such as reflecting on past events or talking about them with others, is an important way in which people develop life stories or a narrative identity and is related to positive well-being in research with adults” (McLean 2009, p. 702)

7. Findings from narrative research indicate that: • we learn to construct coherent narratives with our parent/s when we are children; • it is in adolescence when we start to engage in autobiographical reasoning; • in adults there is a positive correlation between a coherent personal narrative and well-being;

8. Activity Plot your Primary and Secondary School education on a graph, describing key life events and the influence they may have had on you.

10. The Present Study: Narrative interviews with Students at the Bridge Academy Students

11. The Present Study • Only included students in the study who did had not have substantial learning difficulties or specific learning difficulties. • Interviewed 30 students in year 10 and 11 at the Bridge Academy • 26 of the interviews were analysed (10 girls 16 boys) • 23 students were interviewed twice • Only 5 of the students live with both their birth parents • 21 live with their mother (1 with father)

12. What are we looking for in adolescent and adult narratives: • Content and Critical Life Events • Narrative Coherence • Emotional Content • Autobiographical Reasoning

13. Primary School

14. Primary School Q: How was primary school? R: It was the best time of my life Q: Teachers how were they? R: Like polite. Yeah, they never shouted, not that much. At Greenside it was like everyone was good. You know in my class there was no naughty kids and I knew everyone in the school.

15. Secondary School

16. Pupil Referral Unit Students at the Bridge Academy

17. Narrative Coherence and Autobiographical Reasoning

18. Final Comments • Students are not defined by their past experiences and the particular narrative they have constructed about themselves; • It is more helpful to reflect on the actions they take now than to “ruminate” on past events; • students need to help (scaffolding) to create educational narratives about themselves on the basis of their current experiences. Narratives that are coherent, progressive and positive.

19. References and Further Reading Bohanek, J. G., Marin, J. G., Fivush, R., & Duke, M. P. (2006). Family narrative interaction and children's sense of self. Family Process, 45(1), 39-54. Crossley, M. L. (2000). Narrative psychology: self, trauma and construction of mearning. Buckingham: Open University Press. Habermas, T., & Bluck, S. (2000). Getting a life: The development of the life story in adolescence. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 748-769. Matsuba, M. K., Elder, G., Petrucci, F., & Reimer, K. S. (2009). Re-storying the lives of at-risk youth: a case study approach. In K. C. McLean & M. Pasupathi (Eds.), Narrative development in adolescence: Creating the storied self. New York: Springer. McLean, K. C., & Mansfield, C. D. (2010). To reason or not to reason: Is autobiographical reasoning always benificial. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 131, 85-97. McLean, K. C., & Pasupathi, M. (Eds.). (2009). Narrative development in adolescence: Creating the storied self. New York: Springer. Milner, J., & O'Byrne, P. (2002). Brief counselling: Narrative and solutions. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Sales, J. M., Merill, N. A., & Fivush, R. (2013). Does making meaning make it better? Narrative meaning making and well being in at risk African-American adolescent females. Memory, 21(1), 97-110. Wainryb, C., Komolova, M., & Florsheim, P. (2009). How violent youth offenders and typically developing adolescents construct moral agency in narratives about doing harm In K. C. McLean & M. Pasupathi (Eds.), Narrative development in adolescence: Creating the storied self. New York: Springer. Webster, L., & Mertova, P. (2007). Using narrative Inquiry as a research method: an introduction to using critical event narrative analysis in research on learning and teaching. London: Routledge. White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to narrative ends. New York: W.W. Notrton and Company.