Young Adult Moral Exemplars: The Making of Self Through Stories (original) (raw)
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Storying the Good life: Selfhood and Morality through the Biographical Narrative’ Storyline.
Qualitative Sociology Review, 2015
The connection between personal story and morality has been long enunciated, but remains under-researched. Combining moral and narrative theory, this article approaches this relation by introducing a line of narrative inquiry oriented towards the exploration of how ethical intentions with regard to the good life manifest in and shape the biographical storyline and the self narratively assembled. The analysis encompasses a first case-based stage focused on the examination of the main motive of the personal story and its effects upon the organization of both self and narrative, followed by a comparative phase in which storylines and moral motives that work as reference of a set of biographical accounts belonging to different social positions, temporalities, or geographies are contrasted in order to establish linkages, breaks, and transformations in the relation between identity and morality across cases. This line of inquiry is applied into a research about intergenerational changes and continuities in the relation between selfhood and morality, based on life stories conducted with Chilean people of successive generations. In the conclusions, this strategy of narrative analysis is assessed in the light of current development of this field of qualitative social research.
Identity Formation and Moral Development in Emerging Adulthood
Oxford Scholarship Online
We argue in this chapter that moral development and identity formation are not disjunctive topics, and that morality and identity ramify in the personal formation of emerging adults in ways that have dispositional implications for how the rest of their lives go. Moral self-identity is crucial to living a life of purpose and for setting one’s life projects on a pathway that contributes to well-being, generativity, and integrity. We first review research on the role of moral purpose in personality development and the conditions that encourage it. We then review the major ways that self-identity has been conceptualized in terms of statuses, processes, and narratives, with particular emphasis on the achievement of identity maturity and its contribution to successful adaptation. We then discuss moral self-identity more directly and outline gaps in the literature and possible lines of future research.
Moral Agency, Identity and Narrative in Moral Development
Human Development, 2010
Moral agency ؒ Moral development ؒ Moral self-identity … the rending pain of re-enactment Of all that you have done, and been; the shame Of motives late revealed, and the awareness Of things ill done and done to others' harm Which once you took for exercise of virtue. Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains. T.S. Eliot (Little Gidding) Many of the research programs within moral development have tended to organize around certain select features of the moral life. For the Kohlberg tradition, it was conflict resolution involving a moral dilemma where competing claims to justice had to be adjudicated fairly by the canons of deliberative reasoning. For Hoffman, it was coming to the aid of bystanders who were in distress. Prosocial reasoning was also a form of bystander intervention-should a farmer give up part of his crop for the sake of poor farmers down the road who were devastated by a flood? Should we donate blood at the risk of inconvenience? More recent research on moral exemplars has tended to focus on volunteering as the target moral behavior of interest. Each of these attributes of the moral life-dilemma-solving, bystander intervention, volunteering-privileges a particular element of human functioning-reason, empathy, identity-to carry much of the explanatory load. In this issue, Pasupathi and Wainryb introduce a new construct-moral agency-to account for another feature of moral life, which is the experience of intentional moral failure, of visiting harm unto others with full knowledge that it is wrong to do so. Moral failure is, of course, a commonplace, and its ubiquity in human life
2020
This study explores the impact a person’s life story has on their sense of self, and how meaning is made in the creation of the life story. Using narrative inquiry, the author analyzes his grandmother’s handwritten life story journal from her adolescence in 1940-50s Oklahoma along with supplemental primary and secondary sources to determine the purpose and impact it had for her psychologically. This study also explores the importance of narrative and storytelling within family structures as it relates to group and individual identity and family cohesion. The author focuses on researcher reflexivity and the special circumstances surrounding the study of work created by a family member. The last chapter is a creative-nonfiction response to the author’s grandmother’s life story. Keywords: Narrative analysis, narrative inquiry, life story, autobiography, creative nonfiction, journal analysis, Early 20th century Oklahom
Character Education : Developing Moral Identity Through Narrativity and Reflection
Dialogues in Education, 2024
In the debate on character education, broadly speaking, it is necessary to distinguish two sets of thoughts: the Aristotelian tradition and the Kantian tradition. These two perspectives have great merits but also have their limitations. Educational approaches referring to these perspectives are often based on a very fragile relationship: in the first case, between habit and behaviour, and the second case, between cognition and behaviour. According to Blasi, moral action does not depend only on reasoning or on virtuous habits, but it depends on the organization of the self and on a person's identity. This paper argues that the integration of the perspective of identity into the theory of character education can point to further development of both theory and educational practices. To address this issue, the author explores the significant role of narrativity in the development of moral identity, drawing on the philosophical perspectives of Alasdair MacIntyre and Paul Ricoeur. The central thesis is that developing a sense of moral identity and moral character is deeply intertwined with the ability to reflect on one's own life narrative. From this perspective, the author argues that in order to "self-regulate one's life" in the MacIntyrean sense and to "re-configure the emplotment of one's life story" as suggested by Ricoeur, individuals must engage in a continuous process of reflection, including a critical examination of their moral values and life experiences. The implications of this narrative and reflexive approach for educational practices are discussed, with a focus on how educators can facilitate identity formation and moral development.
Identity, 2017
This study examines community engagement in youth and emerging adulthood from a narrative identity perspective, based on analyses of a longitudinal data set of 72 participants from ages 17 to 32. At ages 26 and 32, participants told narratives about a key community experience from their personal lives, which was rated for six dimensions. In addition, questionnaire measures of community involvement and general identity status development were administered at ages 17, 26, and 32. We found that patterns of community involvement at age 17 predicted levels of community involvement and qualities of community narratives at ages 26 and 32 and that community narratives were significantly correlated with concurrent measures of identity maturity and community involvement. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed. KEYWORDS Adolescence; community involvement; emerging adulthood; narrative identity At one of the schools that I was teaching at. .. we did this "Pennies for Tots" and it's a little toy drive and you just go around and it's right before Christmas time, and the school that I was teaching at is in a really rough neighborhood and so a lot of the kids don't get a lot in the way of Christmas presents.. .. I drove a group of three kids around this one neighborhood and the kids went door to door and just explained what they were doing.. .. And the impact that this experience had upon me is that it doesn't matter how rich or poor you are you can be charitable, and I think just seeing these people who are not doing very well still being charitable and still caring about other people, I think that sort of had a profound impact on me and I think has influenced me more in terms of wanting to do charity work. This story, told by a 26-year-old man, illustrates how experiences in the community during emerging adulthood can have a strong impact on a personal commitment to future civic engagement, as well as shaping a "moral or civic self" that underlies this commitment. In recent years there has been growing interest in changing civic engagement trends among young people, with data suggesting that youth in Canada and the United States are less involved politically than previous generations, but more involved in alternative forms of engagement (Syvertsen, Wray-Lake, Flanagan, Wayne Osgood, & Briddell, 2011; Turcotte, 2015). Psychologists have also shown interest in issues of youth involvement, with questions of identity being a large focal point within the field (e.g., Crocetti, Jahromi, & Meeus, 2012; Pancer, Pratt, Hunsberger, & Alisat, 2007). Studies suggest that there are profound and complicated relationships between the self and various forms of community involvement (e.g., activism, volunteerism, or religious involvement) across the life course. Although most of this work has focused on the relationships between involvement and ego identity or moral identity, there is an emerging interest in narrative identity and the ways in which stories influence our selves and our participation in community (Cox & McAdams, 2010; McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007).
Identity and Volunteering Intertwined: Reflections on the Values of Young Adults
VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 2011
Volunteering motivation has been studied from many perspectives during the last few decades. These studies have increased our understanding on the individual, dynamic, and reflexive nature of volunteering. Moreover, research that combines volunteering with the concept of identity or role identity has deepened this understanding. Nevertheless, the ways individual volunteers experience and associate volunteering with their personal identities has been little studied. Values can provide an empirical window into the core of personal identity. Identity, values, and volunteering are combined in the approach used in this study, which introduces the theoretical viewpoints of narrative identity and value identity. The analyses of 24 life course interviews demonstrated volunteering can be used in identity work for expressing the core values of individuals. The results also indicate the variety and range of values, which can be associated with volunteering.
Who Am I? Transforming Our Understanding of Identity and Moral Education
Education Sciences, 2019
When I was invited to edit a special issue of Education Sciences on the theme of "Moral education and identity", I saw an opportunity both to gain a better understanding of how scholars across a range of disciplines construed the task of moral education in terms of identity and-I can now confess-to defend the claim that moral education, when properly understood, depends upon an account of identity which is quite different from that which dominates the social sciences, the media and popular opinion. My aim here is to provide such an account and, thereby, to suggest how we might construe the challenge of moral education in a world, and at a time, in which self-centered, shortsighted and narrow-minded thinking dominates much of the socio-political landscape. I argue that the dominant view of identity-that our own identities are constituted by those collectives and institutions with which we identify-actually reinforces narratives which bind us to tribal perspectives-in national, religious and cultural terms-in which we increasingly see ourselves and others in terms of who is "in" and who is "out". I propose a relational view of identity in which each person sees her/himself as "one among others", where the relationships in question both bind us in familiar and concrete ways to others-i.e., other persons but also other objects in the world-and transcend the boundaries imposed by belonging to this or that nation, religion, culture, or tribe. This idea of what it means to be a person goes hand-in-hand with a framework for moral education which is also both concretely relational and appropriately transcendent. Put briefly, we need to create the conditions in which young people engage one another dialogically in taking responsibility for tackling what I term "the Big Questions", including: "What do I/we stand for?", "What/who really matters?", "What kind of society/world do I/we want to live in (and leave for future generations)?", and "What is my place in the world?". (In taking this approach, I aim to address at least some of the questions posed in the original call for submissions for this special issue, as outlined at the Special Issue "Moral Education and Identity").
Possible selves: An exploration of the utility of a narrative approach
Identity: An International Journal of Theory and …, 2002
Possible selves: An exploration of the utility of a narrative approach Dr. Monica Whitty 2 Possible selves: An exploration of the utility of a story-writing approach This study has two main aims: (a) to explore young men and women's hopes and dreams for the future and (b) in so doing to explore the utility of a story-writ ing method. It is argued here that when identity is conceptualized as a life story, researchers need to consider story-writing methods in their investigations of identity formation. Three methods were used to compare findings from the story-telling method with more traditional methods, in this case an interview an d a questionnaire. This research revealed that the story-writing method was useful for a variety of reasons. It provided rich data that generated themes that were taken up by the following methods. Moreover, it was more successful than the other methods at bringing to light subjects' 'ideal selves'.