ERIC Number: ED475109
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2000
Pages: 33
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: ISBN-87-7349-485-2
ISSN: ISSN-1395-6833
EISSN: N/A
Telling Modernization: Three Voices. Life History, Gender and the Discourse of Modernization. Roskilde University Life History Project Paper.
Anderson, Linda
The relationship between life history, gender, and the discourse of modernization was examined from the perspective of a researcher with extensive experience performing evaluations about modernization within human services in Denmark. Three stories about site-based management in two human service institutionsa youth center and a boarding school for autistic childrenwere presented to illuminate fragments of the complex condition that modernization represents. One story, which was told by a female superintendent, reflects feelings of skepticism and professional pride and discusses modernization in terms of development. A second story, which was told by a male superintendent, stresses the challenges and criticism encountered during modernization. In analyzing the stories, the author explored the following themes: (1) the discourse of modernization; (2) pre-existing or interpretive narratives; (3) the notion of the dialectical, liberated, and dispersed subject and the various theoretical forms in which life histories emerge; (4) the concepts of subject and surface and their relationship to the discourse of life history and modernization; (5) fluent and fixed icons of life history; (6) lost virginity and floating space as images of modernization; and (7) rituals of passage, storytelling, imagination, and the researcher's voice. (Fourteen endnotes and 27 references are included.) (MN)
Descriptors: Administrator Attitudes, Bias, Biographies, Comparative Analysis, Cultural Context, Definitions, Discourse Analysis, Discourse Communities, Educational Anthropology, Ethnography, Females, Foreign Countries, Human Services, Imagination, Interaction, Life Events, Metaphors, Modernization, Organizational Change, Personal Narratives, Research Methodology, Researchers, School Based Management, Sex Differences, Social Science Research, Social Theories, Story Telling, Theory Practice Relationship, Transformative Learning, Womens Education, World Views
Roskilde University, P10, Postboks 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark (free).
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Roskilde Univ. Center (Denmark).
Identifiers - Location: Denmark
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A