The Life Story Interview

by Robert G. Atkinson

Overview

First-person narratives are a fundamental tool of the qualitative researcher. One of the latest volumes in the Qualitative Research Methods series, The Life Story Interview provides specific suggestions and guidelines for preparing and executing a life story interview. Author Robert Atkinson, Director of the Center for the Study of Lives at the University of Southern Maine, places the life story interview into a wider research context before moving on to planning and conducting the interview. Atkinson carefully covers the classic functions of stories, the research uses of life stories, generating data from a life story, and the art and science of life story interviewing. He also thoroughly examines the potential benefits of sharing a life story, getting the information desired and questions to ask, and transcribing and interpreting the interview. To provide further support for the reader, the book concludes with a sample life story interview.

As the use and study of narratives continues to grow in importance throughout the research enterprise, The Life Story Interview becomes an even-more valuable tool for qualitative researchers in all disciplines.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506349657
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	01/06/1998
Series:	Qualitative Research Methods , #44
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	104
File size:	420 KB

About the Author

Robert Atkinson (Ph.D., Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development, University of Pennsylvania) has been on the faculty of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Southern Maine since 1987. His primary areas of teaching and scholarship are cross-cultural human development, multiple identities, culture, diversity, and consciousness, adolescent development, adulthood and psychospiritual development, and life stories, personal mythmaking, and storytelling. He is the director of the Center for the Study of Lives at USM, which has a growing archive of over 400 life stories, and recently served a two-year appointment (2002-2004) as the first Diversity Scholar for CEHD. In fall 2002, he was a faculty member in the Semester at Sea program of the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author, co-author, or editor of six books, including: The Beat of My Drum: An Autobiography, with Babatunde Olatunji (Temple University Press, 2005); The Life Story Interview (Sage, 1998); The Gift of Stories: Practical and Spiritual Applications of Autobiography, Life Stories, and Personal Mythmaking ( Greenwood, 1995); and, The Teenage World: Adolescent Self-Image in Ten Countries (Plenum, 1988). He has written over two dozen articles and essays for various magazines, journals, and reference works.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: CONTEXTS AND USES OF LIFE STORIES
Stories in Context
The Life Story in Disciplinary Context
What a Life Story Is
The Classic Functions of Stories
The Research Uses of Life Stories
Generating Data from a Life Story
The Art and Science of Life Story Interviewing
PART TWO: PLANNING THE INTERVIEW
The Potential Benefits of Sharing a Life Story
Basic Interview Guidelines
The Morals of the Story
PART THREE: DOING THE INTERVIEW
Getting the Information You Want
Questions To Ask
PART FOUR: INTERPRETING THE INTERVIEW
Transcription
Interpretation
PART FIVE: CONCLUSION