Paper Example on Narrative Methodology: Examining Patriarchy's Effects on Women

Introduction

The narrative methodology is a new method to approach, especially from an educational perspective. The reason is that in almost every day event stories always forms part whether in education or other activities that people engage in. Therefore coming up with an educational explanation in the form of narration is not a hard task to accomplish. This paper seeks to discuss how patriarchy affects women, and the research methodology that will be used is the narrative approach.

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Ordinarily, a narrative method is one that involves storytelling and making sense. There has grown the interest to use the narrative process in most of the various educational fields and the levels of education. The use of this approach is continuing to increase because there are multiple reasons why adopting narration is likely to suit the research that a person is involved. The narrative methodology is described as a method that is meant to further the literary approach that is rarely used. Another description is that it is also an extension of the psychoanalysis or the ethnography research methods. Others compare the technique as a much better one compared to other rising research methodologies weighing the outcomes and the foundations. Involving narrative methodology in research helps the author to not only understand their topic but also to be able to apply fundamental knowledge from the topic that they intend to write about (Mitchell & Egudo, 2003). The social and narrative aspects help to emphasize the topic that the author chooses and it helps them to develop their story in a presentable manner and one that can be related well considering that it is an issue that people experience.

Brief History

The narrative research methodology is one that has been adopted recently; therefore, it can be said to be a post-modern approach. The post-modern era is the period in the late 20th century about (Mitchell & Egudo, 2003). The post-modern period is one that has raised a lot of different concerns and interests from a researcher who wants to find out about various issues of concern. Post-modernism helps in clarification and creation of the fact that knowledge is an essential and valuable tool, especially for the use in the current day. The narrative approach helps to come up with the truth of social life and the interactions in society. The narrative approach, therefore, aids to bring the reality of the matter and helps to gain knowledge and the various ways that they can deal with issues that they may be faced with based on the knowledge acquired. Using images, stories of real-life experiences, and time factor, the narrative approach helps to enhance creativity, uniqueness, diversity of research. According to Mitchell & Agudo (9), the traditional method in psychology was primarily used and has been used to lay foundations and develop new strategies of doing proper research.

They are delving into psychology where there was some interest in the lives of individuals during research. The memories of the informant would be used to understand their life as a person while the behavioral and positivist approach involved taking account of the behavior of the patient to assess the problem. In the current day, the procedures form part of those that are no longer used. As time continued to pass, there has been a diverse approach and cognition to human experiences. Paying keen attention to what people go through is more of what has influenced the narrative method. This has then paved the way for the cognitive manner of psychology where the narrative is seen to move from the emotional aspect towards dealing with the logical kind of form about (Mitchell & Egudo, 2003).

Reasons Why the Narrative Methodology is Suitable

Based on the fact that the goal is to deal with more realistic arguments based on experiences, leads us to the first signs of using the narrative form in tackling the issue at hand. The fact that narrative is a day to day even makes it more practical. According to McAlpine (3), the narrative methodology has been used in studies like those that involve gender discussions, education, history, sociology and others like biography where most times there is always a story involved. The stories are used to join the dots to come up with the reasons that various things happen in the manner that they do and other actions. The story told by the informant is a foundation that a narrative researcher relies on upon order to use it to bring into account the human experiences about the topic. Therefore a narrative approach forms the basis through which the research can obtain flow step by step using the personal skills, which in this case is the effect of patriarchy on women.

The second reason is that in psychology as had been discussed earlier, the significance is to deal with logical context other than the emotional part to explain the research area more vividly. Considering that the topic is psychology-based, then the narrative approach will suit as the model of the research. The stories will not only form part of the discussion that will but also help to develop the research and identify more gaps and recommendations. The research will cover the logical part that will help to argue in support of the research with convincing and stories that help to understand the topic better and much more quickly.

The narrative approach also helps to develop a broader mode of thinking. The reason being hearing the stories of various people based on experience helps to understand that things don not only happen in the way that people always think. This leads to understanding why patriarchy affects women, the reasons why they are affected based on the explanation that they give through their stories. Therefore it helps to also hear from both sides and come up with explanations why one gender may want to have things their way and not the other way. One can establish a clear distinction of the same.

Benefits of Narrative Research Method

Adopting a narrative research method draws many advantages along as will be discussed below:

The researcher can obtain information from informants who have clear and unchanged experiences of the gap that is being addressed. Through this process, there are also gaps that are identified for future research.

Since the researcher has time to find the informants, they will not have to be disrupted from their regular duties. The researcher will have to go to the field and collect all the relevant data they require for their study.

The researcher can collect a wide range of information while on the field other than reading information from books or other sources. The stories based on the experiences help to come up with practical and diverse research.

The information obtained has no limit because there are a lot of stories that the researcher will be in a position to hear therefore has facts and arguments to support their argument making it easy to have an in-depth discussion regarding the topic.

A narrative methodology is an interesting approach to deal with the topic of effects of patriarchy on women because there will be a wide range of stories obtained to support the argument, develop the research without exhaustion of ideas and have recommendations.

References

McAlpine, L., 2016. Why Might You Use Narrative Methodology? A Story About Narrative [online]. Available at http://eha.ut.ee/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/6_02b_alpine.pdf [accessed 11th July 2019].

Mitchell, M., & Egudo, M., 2003. A Review of Narrative Methodology. Systems and Science Laboratory. [online]. Available at https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/css506/506%20readings/review%20of%20narritive%20methodology%20australian%20gov.pdf [accessed 11th July 2019].