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The hills are alive…

Emma Parfitt — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 11:52:00 +0000

The International Sociological Association have accepted my abstract to speak in Vienna this July. Yay! I won’t be wearing a dress made from curtains but this is what the presentation will be on, perhaps I’ll see you there.

Photo ‘Vienna’ by Osamu Kaneko (http://bit.ly/1OuQFXF)

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

A Managed Heart in relation to storytelling: how education policy shapes young people’s perceptions of emotion.

Literature searches indicate that Hochschild’s theories of emotion have not been linked to oral storytelling in an educational setting. In A Managed Heart Hochschild researched how flight attendants at Delta Airlines managed emotion. Hochschild proposed that people were trained to manage emotion in the workplace. This paper explores Hochschild’s theories in the context of educational policy and oral storytelling.

A storytelling space was created in three schools in the UK, Warwickshire, in 2013. Analysis involved NVivo coding of storytelling and focus group sessions one hour long, over five subsequent weeks, with young people from 12-14 years. In total, there were six groups of four children, of mixed ethnicity, ability, and socio-economic background. The students’ conversations were recorded and transcribed for empirical analysis.

The findings suggest that English literature guidelines, set by the Department for Education, influenced the students’ interpretations of emotion. There were significant similarities between educational guidelines and the way students discussed oral storytelling. For instance, the students connected character motivation to emotion reflective of an educational approach (a standardised way to interpret classroom texts such as Romeo and Juliet). The students identified a character’s emotional ‘motivation’ and linked this to ‘actions or events’ in a causative way. Through Hochschild’s work parallels can be drawn between ‘how society uses feeling’ (2003, 17) and how individuals might be educated to use feeling through Governmental policies like the National Curriculum.

The analysis indicates that oral storytelling is a useful method for exploring the theories of Hochschild in a social context. If education influences the students’ analysis of texts, and the analysis of oral storytelling, similar aspects of interpreting behaviour and emotions might arise in other situations in the students’ lives. In this way education might have structural influence over students’ emotional connections, and potentially, the negotiation of social relationships with others.

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PhD Progress update

Emma Parfitt — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:43:00 +0000

My PhD had changed alot since the very beginning when I had what seems like a really vague idea now about storytelling and mental health. I then became interested in how stories teach people about their culture, including emotional language and understanding. I have clarified my thesis statement to: The civilisation of emotion: does traditional storytelling or do stories have an effect on how young people identify and understand the language of emotion?

So in my thesis I am going to explore Arlie Hochschild’s concept of how society uses feeling in relation to young people and traditional storytelling. I intend to use Hochschild’s ideas to form a link between Jack Zipes’ application of Elias and civilitie and Bruno Bettelheim’s discussions on the possible meaning and understanding of fairy stories. While Zipes debates the behavioural influences of fairy tale literature on civilization Bettelheim’s focus was on children’s psychological maturity (which is important to well-being when it comes to coping with depression and anxiety). Emotions in this way are co-dependant knowledge, we learn the language of emotion how to recognise, label, and place meaning on feelings through our interactions with others. Fitting in with ideas of social constructionism the language, meaning and expression of emotion is socially constructed and under constant revision.

So what do I mean by ‘does traditional storytelling or do stories have an effect’? I believe that narrative can help young people to negotiate transitions from late childhood to early adulthood. My research methods (comprising of interviews, storytelling, and group discussion) act in an intervention capacity, in that the students’ interpretation and experience of the storytelling performance allows their ideas to be perceived and validated, in other words tested against the responses of others. Social influences such as media, the internet, and other people, have narrative elements which combined on many levels potentially inform our emotional language and understanding. The research may be used in part to begin to separate out the processes of meaning-making which may validate why storytelling may have psychological benefits because it is exploring the student’s words and interactions over a period of time. And I hope this may take us a step closer to understanding what a marvellous thing our culture is, and how we can encourage multiple layers of tolerance and understanding between different genders, class and culture, and empower young people to make a difference in society with the right support. The support they tell us they need rather than what, in good faith, we try to impose.

On other news, going part time has helped the money situation I’m working hard to complete my PhD in four years on schedule. If anyone hears of any grants or sponsorship that my PhD might qualify for please let me know. I’ve written to my local MP, and to the Minister of Education, to appeal for more consideration of PhD funding, such as for example changing the current Career Development Loan system. It is designed to cover two years of study and provides a maximum of £10,000 which then has to be paid back in roughly £200 instalments a month. It was never designed to provide for PhD students but some of us have no other choice. I used mine to support myself and cover the bulk of my first two years fees. This past year I have applied for funding and worked part time to save up money to pay off the loan and pay for subsequent year’s fees. However the unexpected move to Warwick University with my supervisor in September has eaten up my savings for next year’s fees because I was unable to find work from Sept – January. But as in the past if I work hard I know that I will create an opportunity to find the money I need to get by. Feeling forcibly optimistic. A big thank you to everyone who has supported me thus far.

Happy Easter J

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Hochschild & Storytelling

Emma Parfitt — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 19:45:00 +0000

December 3^rd Warwick University Writer’s department hosted poet Michael Farrell from Australia. I liked the narrative style of his most recent stuff. Had a conversation with him at the end about the poem Juggle which I thought was called Jungle, as I heard lots of jungle imagery in it, and was carried away by my own internal narrative and his words. It was fascinating hearing him talk about his techniques as a writer (which sometimes involve chance, like throwing a dice). I was interested in poetry as a verbal language… in my experience of hearing poetry it comes to life in a way that it doesn’t on the page. However Farrell challenged this perception because his form is very visually represented on the page.

I was also lucky to attend storytelling performances by MA students of Drama and Theatre Education on 5^th December at Warwick’s Avon studio.

The performed stories were The Good Daughter, Rapunzel, Persephone, Nezha, Emperor’s New Clothes and Bluebeard. I particularly liked the creative quirks in The Emperor’s New Clothes and Bluebeard. The students are going to perform to children. The students work interested me because I have been thinking of my PhD, more recently, in terms of the emotional language of stories, the values and meanings hidden in their verbal expression, and how adolescents could construct an idea of the emotional “norms” of society from this. This has links with work by Arlie Hochschild on “feeling rules”. From now until January I will be focusing on reading more around this area to formulate a paper considering how the ideas of Hochschild could be used as part of an interdisciplinary approach to my work on storytelling with adolescents.

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