TY - JOUR

T1 - Narrating significant experience: reflective accounts and the production of (self) knowledge.

AU - Taylor, C.

N1 - RAE_import_type : Journal article RAE_uoa_type : Social Work and Social Policy & Administration

PY - 2006/2

Y1 - 2006/2

N2 - Notwithstanding the rise of evidence-based practice, other tendencies within social work scholarship are also discernible. One of these is the study of the everyday, routine accomplishment of practice, drawing on microsociological methods and techniques. In this article, I apply techniques drawn from narrative and discourse analysis to the study of reflective practice accounts, which hold an important place in social work education. In particular, it is relevant to examine the form that reflective accounts take and the rhetorical and narrative devices deployed within them to accomplish a competent professional identity. My argument is not that such accounts of practice are untruthful, rather I propose that we would do well to move beyond taking texts (and talk) for granted and treating language as merely the medium for expressing inner thoughts and feelings. Social work should take seriously the need to explore its modes of representation and to cultivate a more self-conscious approach to the way professional and client identities are produced in practice.

AB - Notwithstanding the rise of evidence-based practice, other tendencies within social work scholarship are also discernible. One of these is the study of the everyday, routine accomplishment of practice, drawing on microsociological methods and techniques. In this article, I apply techniques drawn from narrative and discourse analysis to the study of reflective practice accounts, which hold an important place in social work education. In particular, it is relevant to examine the form that reflective accounts take and the rhetorical and narrative devices deployed within them to accomplish a competent professional identity. My argument is not that such accounts of practice are untruthful, rather I propose that we would do well to move beyond taking texts (and talk) for granted and treating language as merely the medium for expressing inner thoughts and feelings. Social work should take seriously the need to explore its modes of representation and to cultivate a more self-conscious approach to the way professional and client identities are produced in practice.

KW - Reflective practice

KW - narrative

KW - rhetorical devices

KW - qualitative methods of analysis

U2 - 10.1093/bjsw/bch269

DO - 10.1093/bjsw/bch269

M3 - Journal article

VL - 36

SP - 189

EP - 206

JO - British Journal of Social Work

JF - British Journal of Social Work

SN - 1468-263X

IS - 2

ER -