Wieso Being Bad ein ganz natuerliches Phaenomen ist: 13-jaehrige Jungen zum Thema: Was Maedchen wollen clark university department of psychology worcester, ma, usa michael bamberg

kurz-geschichte 1 kurz-geschichte 2 Small story: Kevin, how disgusting! --- gestern war SGAD – und ich hab Kevin reingelegt POSITIONIERUNG (a)gegenüber Mädchen und Kevin (b)gegenüber Vic und Moderator (c)gegenüber ---normativer Heterosexualität ---political correctness (fine tuning zwischen obnoxious + okay) ---being bad (was es heisst ein schlimmer Junge zu sein) Small Story: My Mom was like: Do I know you? - -- wie ich mich aus der Affäre ziehen konnte POSITIONIERUNG (a)gegenüber Judy + Mom (Mädchen + Lehrer) (b)gegenüber V und M (c)gegenüber ---Heteronormativität ---political correctness (fine tuning dessen was erlaubt ist) ---normativer männlicher Sexualität (durchaus ambivalent)

Kevin, how disgusting! Gestern war SGAD Ich hab nem Maedchen in den Po gekniffen und Kevin die Schuld in die Schuh geschoben Was fuer ein Wimp Kevin ist!

My Mom was like: Do I know you? Judy tried to challenge me and my Mom came Girls say dont do it, but they want it done The whole school did it Teachers approve What if girls turned the tables on us?

The Project 5-year-long pilot project of year-old males Cross-sectional + longitudinal data DATA: Observational Writing Interview Group discussions After-school non-adult guided interactions TOPICS: -friends, -girls, -emotions/body, -future

Maedchen + Jungen im Vergleich

Three Kinds of Narrative Approaches to the Study of Self and Identity Life-Story Approaches Life-Event Approaches Small Stories –Short narrative accounts –Embedded in every-day interactions –Unnoticed as stories by the participants –Unnoticed as narratives by researchers –But highly relevant for identity formation processes

Life-Stories + Life-Events Life-Stories –Dan McAdams (1993) + Gabi Rosenthal (1998) –Elicitation Technique –Analysis of lives –Focus on coherence + health Life-Events –Most narrative research –Elicitation is focused on particular events or experiences –Analysis of focused area –Meaning of event in ones life

Merits of narrative life research life-history + life-event approaches Accentuates and brings to light lived experience Forces participants to focus on the meaning of THAT event in their lives Accentuates the continuity of experience And sheds light on aspects that appear discontinuous Assumes a unified sense of personal identity -- against which experience is constantly sorted out

potential shortcomings or open questions How does this unified sense of self come to existence? –How does the person learn to sort out events against what is called life? Overemphasis of stories about the self –Cutting out all those stories about others Overemphasis of long stories –Cutting out everyday, small stories

why? Influences of traditional psychological inquiry –Interests in selves + self-coherence Influences of traditional narratology –Work with texts (written texts) –Assuming authors as behind the texts –Assuming criteria of goodness for narratives Interviews as windows into selves

Narrative Dimensions (Ochs & Capps, 2001) Tellership one active teller vs. many Tellability high vs. low Embeddedness detached from surrounding talk vs. situational embeddedness Moral stance one moral message vs. different + conflicting messages Linearity & Temporality closed temporal + causal order vs. open + spatial

Stories about others: the Davie Hogan story Positioning with Davie Hogan. Stories, Tellings & Identities. Chapter in: C. Daiute & C. Lightfoot (Eds.), Narrative analysis: Studying the development of individuals in society. London: Sage. (2003)

Characteristics of SMALL stories Short Conversationally Embedded + Negotiated before during after Fine tuned positioning strategies –fine-tuned vis-à-vis the audience –fine-tuned vis-à-vis dominant + counter narratives –multiple moral stances (testing out and experimenting with identity projections ) Low in tellability, linearity, temporality + causality

Kurz-geschichte 1 Kevin, how disgusting! Kurz-geschichte 2 My Mom was like: Do I know you?

Functions of SMALL stories Practice in doing identity work Continuous editing of experience –Retelling of experience –Re-tuning these tellings according to different audiences Different master-narratives different (developing) senses of who-I-am Resulting in some sense of coherence though one that is constantly reworked

conclusion So, rather than assuming the existence of identity + sense of self – and viewing narratives as reflections thereof, I am suggesting to study the emergence of a sense of self by way of exploring the SMALL stories people tell in their EVERYDAY interactions