Böcker av Sarah Richards

This book advances social scientific interest in a field long dominated by the humanities: stories, and storytelling. Stories are a whole lot more than entertainment; oral narratives, novels, films and immersive video games all form part of the sociocultural discourses which we are enmeshed in, and use to co-construct our beliefs about the world around us. Young children use them to learn about the world beyond their immediate sensory experience and, even in an era of interactive electronic media, the bedtime story remains a cherished part of most children¿s daily routine. Storytelling is thus the first abstract formal learning method we encounter as human beings. It is also probably transcultural; perhaps even an immanent part of the human condition. Narratives are, at heart, sequences of events and presuppose and reinforce particular cause-and-effect relationships. Inevitably, they also construct unconscious biases, prejudices, and discriminatory attitudes. Storying (a term we use in this book to encompass stories, storytellers and storytelling) is complex, and this book seeks to make sense of it.

Through the battles of darkness created by depression and anxiety came a creative way to survive and make the self-deprecation and hatred something real to fight against.

An increasing interest in children's lives has tested the ethical and practical limits of research. Rather than making tricky ethical decisions, transparent researchers tend to gloss over stories that do not fit with sanitized narratives. This book aims to fill this gap by making explicit the lived experiences of research with children.