Family Ties: Communicating Identity Through Jointly Told Family Stories This paper is based on the author's dissertation study and was presented on the Top Four Panel of the Family Communication Division at the National Communication Association Convention, November 2003, Miami, FL (original) (raw)
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Western Journal of Communication, 2009
Narratives help people make sense of difficult experiences. In addition, stories provide insight into people's conceptualizations of the world, including their understanding of their family relationships. Given these two functions of storytelling, the ways in which family members tell stories about difficult experiences together should reveal or reflect relational qualities. This project focused on how the family relational context relates to jointly enacted sense-making behaviors as families tell stories of shared difficult experiences. Findings indicate that interactional sense-making behaviors, in particular coherence and perspective-taking, predict important family relational qualities. This suggests that family qualities affect and are reflected in the likelihood that family members will engage in productive sense-making behaviors as a unit when talking about a shared difficult experience.
2017
Individual and relational-level outcomes are predicted by communicative processes of discipline, conflict avoidance, openness, affection, support, humor/fun, storytelling, and family time in the family. Proposition 2: Relational ideology of family moderates the relationship between communicative processes and individual and relational outcomes. Proposition 3: Composition structures moderate the relationship between communication processes and individual and relational outcomes. Proposition 4: Family identification moderates the relationship between communication processes and individual and relational outcomes. Research Question: What life stressors do individuals identify and what role do those stressors play in the relationship between communication processes and individual and relational outcomes? The results of Study 2 extend our understanding of family identity, and the role it plays in the life of the individual, and the extent to which family identity is connected to the quality of the family system. Family identity occurs at the system level, yet the impacts of that identity may vary from family member to family member. These results integrate current theorizing on family communication (i.e., FCS, Caughlin, 2003; FCP,
Quality Interactions and Family Storytelling
Communication Reports, 2013
This study examined how individuals' satisfaction with their family, as well as the ways they negotiated the telling of a family story, combined to predict their perceived quality of the storytelling interaction. Drawing from family members' (150 individuals, 50 families) joint telling of an often told family story, multilevel modeling analyses revealed significant variance within and between families' perceived quality of their storytelling interaction. These variances were explained by family satisfaction and family-level ratings of engagement during storytelling. These findings drive our suggestions for future assessment of multiple members' perspectives of joint family storytelling interactions.
Family legacies: Constructing individual and family identity through intergenerational storytelling
Narrative Inquiry, 2009
The current study focused on discovering the ways in which the intergenerational transmission of family legacy stories both enables and constrains individual family members' sense of their own identities. Using semi-structured interviews, 17 third generation family members identified a multitude of both positive and negative family legacies. Both positive and negative legacies were influenced by the storytelling context. Positive legacies portrayed families as hardworking, caring, and cohesive while negative legacies were more idiosyncratic. Individual family members typically responded to their family legacies by embracing the positive and rejecting the negative. However, individuals' responses also pointed to additional complexities in accepting or rejecting family legacies. Specifically, some individuals embraced negative family legacies and rejected positive ones; others only accepted portions of the legacies; and some reported their legacies as unembraceable.
The Family's Construction of Past Stressors: Clues in the Measurement of Family Stories
1990
This study investigated the ways in which families operate as a unit while presenting a story to an interviewer, and the ways in which they interface with the outside world, as represented by the interviewer. A description of the study is preceded by an overview of relevant literature, including studies that concerred microsocial analyses, shared family constructs, family storieLi, and research interviewing. The design of the study involved four steps. First, two stories about stressful family events were elicited from 44 families. The family as a group described to an interviewer how it reacted to the events. Second, a theory of family regulation as manifested through the storytelling process was constructed. Third, descriptors for evaluating family interaction were chosen. These included family communication, boundary maintenance, cohesiveness, vitality, flexibility, and humor. Fourth, a coding protocol for assessing levels of behavior, meaning, and memory in the storytelling process was developed. Dimensions coded included: (1) the family's self-presentation; (2) the family's relations with the outside world; (3) intrafamily connectedness; (4) story structure; and (5) family affirmation and closure. Family continuity was also assessed. At the time of presentation of this paper, preliminary data analyses were proceeding. A reference list of 27 items is included. (BC)
I. The Family Narrative Consortium: A Multidimensional Approach to Narratives
Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 1999
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Use of Family Narratives as a Tool of Effective Parenting
Family narratives and reminisces can be effectively used by parents as a tool to help children develop self-concept. Family narratives are the way through which children and adolescents connect across generations to create self-identity. By anchoring oneself in family history, one develops a sense of place and security that may facilitate self-confidence and self-competence. In the modern world where nuclear family is the norm, parents need to ensure that family narratives are used effectively in helping children navigate through challenges of life. Parents and grandparents have to pay careful attention to family history and narratives; and put in efforts in developing strong family narratives to be shared with children. Also, parents need to be careful while sharing those reminisces and narratives by avoiding individual comparison of their children with others in the past. Celebrating certain occasions as a day for showing gratitude towards grandparents and older generations can also generate curiosity and interest among children about family narratives. The current study looks into family narratives practices, challenges and how parents can develop strong family narratives to be shared with their children.
The Bonds and Burdens of Family Life: Using Narrative
2011
Attempts to understand difficult family relationships have ignored the inextricable links between positive and negative relationships. Narrative analysis provides insight into complex relationships within social context. We analysed interviews with older people in New Zealand using levels of narrativity to reveal the negotiations required to manage personal identity at the intersection of competing public narratives. Participants and interviewers used public narratives of family life that reinforce family roles while simultaneously drawing upon alternative narratives of identity and morality. Investigating narratives of difficult family relationships reveals the influence of dominant social norms on the negotiation of social identities through personal stories.
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