Narrative identity: Ricoeur and early childhood education

Abstract

The thesis argues that who we are, what we aspire to, and how we enact social and cultural practices are a result of the way we narrate stories about ourselves as both individuals and members of communities. The question ‘Who am I?’ is frequently answered with reference to what is important to us: our commitments and what we determine as good, valuable and right. Our identity is thus inextricably woven into our understanding of life as an unfolding story, bound by an ethical commitment to what we value. In this way, understandings of narrative and identity become part of the social and cultural context of education, drawing upon complex relationships between individual and community. It is through narrative that we construct truth about ourselves in relation to others. The central concern of the thesis is the interplay between the ‘capable’ child subject and various readings of texts that form the educational landscape in Aotearoa New Zealand: in curriculum documents with their emphasis on relationships, reciprocity, community, culture and language; and in policy documents with their emphasis on economic rationality. The thesis examines some important narratives that emerge from readings of these curriculum and policy documents, and the impact of those narratives on identity formation in early childhood education. Examined in turn are a liberal narrative, an economic narrative and a social narrative. Each of these narratives emphasises particular discourses and rationalities within education. The thesis finds these narratives inadequate to explain understandings of the self of early childhood education. The thesis argues that Ricoeur’s hermeneutical approach enables a range of narrative possibilities for early childhood education. The use of Ricoeur’s narrative theory in the thesis is twofold: a methodological approach for the study, and a critical exploration of the formation of ‘narrative identity’ (for both the individual and the group) through an examination of selected narratives. The thesis responds to the tensions of these narratives through Ricoeur’s understandings of ‘intersubjectivity’ and ‘just institutions’ and provides educators with an ethical framework by promoting Ricoeur’s understandings of the ‘good life’ and a ‘capable subject’.