What is second language acquisition like from the learner's perspective? I examined published autobiographies authored by those who have documented their language learning journeys. One theme that recurred across the texts was Writing; a sub-theme was Writing life 1 in language 2. Some narrativists/learners described the dissonance, while others…

Stories that were written by my grandfather at the turn of the 20th century spiraled into my daily life as a nurse-teacher at the turn of the 21st century. In this paper, I explore a common plotline of my Afi (Islandic for grandfather) and me as pioneers by linking his life stories to the tensions I experience in my contemporary professional…

In this article the author argues that narrative accounts of the effects of parental mental disorder (particularly mood disturbance) on children's functioning may provide unprecedented windows on crucial issues of silence, stigmatization, diagnosis, etiology, and treatment, which can mutually inform empirical research efforts. In publishing a…

School counseling professionals are recognizing the need to address family issues as an intervention strategy with children. Counselor educators can assist school counselor trainees in understanding the family systems' perspective by using the family autobiography as a course requirement. This article presents a description of the family…

Writing instruction in the United States now routinely takes place in networked environments. For adult learners in open admissions institutions, the literacy demands of the academic sphere and the public nature of the acts of writing in networked environments can create alienating experiences. This study examined the possibilities that the genre…

I offer an autoethnographic exploration of my experience with the culture of a marriage and family therapist (MFT) in training. As a beginning therapist I assumed that success would be determined primarily by how well I mastered different theoretical models. This belief shifted during an instance in which I was planning to begin differentiating…

The power of black women's personal narratives emerging out of nineteenth-century America rested in their sociopolitical as well as in their literary contributions. These slave narratives and autobiographical texts, however, were either ignored, sentimentalized, or reduced in scope as addenda to the abolitionist-inspired texts produced by black…

Using an autobiographical approach for pedagogical reflection, the author raises questions about how to include "hospitable kinship" and "gift exchange" in teaching and learning. Her experience with a Zimbabwean community circle of hospitable kinship has prompted her to consider how this method of community formation might be…

The central thesis in this essay is the need to get more "personal" and more "political" in our thinking and especially our teaching about interculturality. Offering a "radical" critique of the agenda of conventional Intercultural Communication scholarship, I draw my inspiration from the conceptual and philosophical roots of the field, while also…

Research shows that social circumstances influence the development of an individual's high abilities. This paper identifies the micro-social1 factors in the development of entrepreneurial giftedness. Specifically, the paper considers the family milieu, 'significant others' and great contemporaries in the case of Richard Branson, the most…

This paper uses oral history and documentary materials to develop a cross-cultural comparison of the experiences of two self-advocates who spent significant parts of their lives in learning difficulty institutions in England and Iceland. Anne Lewthwaite and Eyglo Ebba Hreinsdottir, born in the same era (1948-1950), were linked through the Open…

Drawing on students' literacy autobiographies, this article critiques the premise that academic discourse and working-class identity are not only static but also in complete opposition. The author argues for a more performative theory of class, a theory that would, she explains, recognize that academic discourse creates social class distinctions…

This paper examines how a group of mostly white, (upper) middle class pre-service teachers expressed resistance in one multicultural education course. We analyze how these students re-evaluated their educational autobiographies upon comparing their educational "story" with that of an "other" of a different race and social class whom they had…

"Voice" has become a dangerous term. It has tended to imply romanticism, expressionism, and individualism--dangerous things. There are, however, two safe or prudent thoughts that can be expressed about voice and writing and four dangerous or adventuresome thoughts. The first point is that the choice between the use of terms such as text…

In "The Uses of Diversity," the interpretive anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, says that it is impossible to completely get inside the point of view of another culture. Geertz contends, however, that despite multiple voices in the growing body of reflexive ethnographies there is still an author composing the work. Besides Geertz,…