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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating ‘care leaver’ identity
T2 - A narrative analysis of personal experience stories
AU - Evans, Craig
PY - 2019/1
Y1 - 2019/1
N2 - People who spent time in public care as children are often representedas ‘care leavers’. This paper investigates how ‘care leaver’ is discursively constructed as a group identity, by analyzing 18 written personal experience stories from several charity websites by people identified or who self-identify as care leavers. Several approaches to narrative analysis are used: a clause-level analysis based on Labovʼs code scheme; the identification of turning points; ananalysis of ‘identity work’; and an analysis of subject positions relative to‘master narratives’. The findings from each of the methods are then combinedto reveal how intertextual, narrative-structural, and contextual factors combineto constitute a common care leaver discourse. This forms the basis for a characterization of ‘care leaver’ group identity as ‘survivors of the system’. Thefindings also reveal how ‘care leaver’ as type, including stereotype, influenceshow identity is constructed in the personal experience narratives.
AB - People who spent time in public care as children are often representedas ‘care leavers’. This paper investigates how ‘care leaver’ is discursively constructed as a group identity, by analyzing 18 written personal experience stories from several charity websites by people identified or who self-identify as care leavers. Several approaches to narrative analysis are used: a clause-level analysis based on Labovʼs code scheme; the identification of turning points; ananalysis of ‘identity work’; and an analysis of subject positions relative to‘master narratives’. The findings from each of the methods are then combinedto reveal how intertextual, narrative-structural, and contextual factors combineto constitute a common care leaver discourse. This forms the basis for a characterization of ‘care leaver’ group identity as ‘survivors of the system’. Thefindings also reveal how ‘care leaver’ as type, including stereotype, influenceshow identity is constructed in the personal experience narratives.
KW - care leavers
KW - discourse analysis
KW - collective identity
KW - social work
KW - narrative analysis
U2 - 10.1515/text-2018-2017
DO - 10.1515/text-2018-2017
M3 - Journal article
VL - 39
SP - 25
EP - 45
JO - Text and Talk
JF - Text and Talk
SN - 1860-7330
IS - 1
ER -