The purpose of this qualitative research, framed as a narrative inquiry, was to explore the experiences of a select familys participation in the Family and Schools Together (F&ST) program at an elementary school in Northwestern Saskatchewan. All members of this select family were Caucasian and of non-aboriginal descent. These participating family members, a mother, father and their three boys, told their story within the context of guided questions in the setting of individual unstructured interviews. The interviews were audio taped, transcribed, analyzed for unique and common threads and written into the form of a family narrative. Although unique threads were discovered from the analysis, the following common experiences emerged: the importance of taking time for family, the benefit of connecting with others and building relationships, the perception of the goals behind F&ST and favourite activities. These experiences were incorporated into the family narrative. <p>This study offers the opportunity for a greater awareness into the impact, participation in the F&ST (Family and Schools Together) intervention program has had on one select family and how that impact can be used to strengthen the delivery of that program and encourage others to get involved. Findings from this study show that the select family in this study experienced positive growth in family relationships, and positive affiliation with their school and community as a result of participating in F&ST. The findings from this study form the basis for implications for practice as well as for areas of further research.

The essay examines the narrative techniques in the novel Delirio (2004) by the Columbian writer Laura Restrepo. Focus is set on the question of narrators. The narrators in this novel have a structuring function, and it is suggested that there is one of them in particular which links the main character's delirium with the context of the 'real world' in the novel. A narratological analysis is carried out based on categories by theorists like Gérard Genette and Yuri Lotman. A description of every narrator's characteristics such as reliability, speech style, knowledge and experience is made, followed by a comparison between them and a reflection about their function in the novel. Finally, among five narrators, two are pointed out as the most important, the one that connects the main characters psychological crisis with reality, and the one which sets the whole story together.

Coetzee’s last novel Diary of a Bad Year (2007) has an intriguing triple-voiced narrative structure and deals with the grey area of shame. The narrative is divided between a writer, his written contribution to a book called “Strong Opinions”, and his secretary’s thoughts about both the opinions in the manuscript and her employer’s circumstances. This essay explores the relation between form and theme in Diary of a Bad Year; to see in what way these two fundamental elements of the novel intervene and support each other. By doing so the narrative structure is read through Freud’s structural model of personality, whereby each narrator’s voice is related to the notions of the super-ego, the ego and the id. In other words, this essay argues that the specific threefold narrative structure in Diary of a Bad Year, by reflecting the interrelated parts of human identity, helps in creating and developing the theme of shame, which only exists connected to the human psyche. This connection in turn gives special meaning to the entire narratology of the novel.

The purpose of this study was to explore the lifelong physical activity (PA) stories of Latinas to determine motives that contribute to exercise adherence behaviors. Using an interview process, life histories were collected from six self-identified PA adherents of Hispanic descent. Three narrative analysis techniques were used to analyze the interviews and the transcript of a follow-up focus group meeting. In the first technique, the Holistic-Content perspective and Labovian transcription were used to identify major themes common in the interviews. Adherence themes that emerged were: 1) culture and family, 2) being pushed, 3) health, 4) role models, and 5) competence. A review of these themes resulted in several suggestions for teaching practitioners: 1) including enjoyment as a criteria for planning activities, 2) focusing on positive reinforcement from teachers and families, 3) providing early opportunities for success, and 4) interacting with strong female role models. A second analysis technique, Lakoff and Johnson's linguistic studies using metaphor to understand one idea in terms of another, yielded the concept of love as health. Study participants frequently used the terms love and addiction in connection with PA. Participants suggested the following as characteristics of healthy love relationships: loyalty, community, positive results, and variety. The term addiction, while not specifically a metaphor, emerged during this process as a powerful exercise adherence motivator. Euphoria and "not feeling right unless I exercise" were cited as primary reasons for adherence behavior. The third technique used was Borman's Symbolic Convergence Theory in which a rhetorical community is formed around a fantasy theme. The theme "perfect body" was identified in the stories as common to four of the participants. Via the media and pop culture, the rhetorical community communicates that a "perfect body" can be achieved with PA and diet. The oppressive gendered message here is that a woman's worth is largely determined by the look of her body, and having the perfect body is the way to success. Facilitating the shift from solely external motivators to a more balanced internal/external set of motivators and from solely negative motivators to positive reasons for exercise adherence is the recommended goal for teaching practitioners.

For this study, twelve life stories of alumni from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, who were enrolled during the Nazi Occupation between 1940 and 1945, were collected and analyzed. Besides exploring the extent to which the interviews were co-constructed jointly by the interviewer and interviewees, this study addresses three questions. First, it acknowledges methodological concerns associated with an overabundance of narrative data, and suggests a new method for arriving at a core narrative based on the distribution of time. This core narrative can then be analyzed further. Second, it is suggested that early memories serve as identity claims; because of their congruency with the remainder of the story, they appear to foreshadow what is to come. As a result, it is argued that childhood memories merit special attention in the analysis of narratives. Third, and finally, the constraints on narratives imposed by cultural conventions, or master narratives, are explored. Narrators use a variety of strategies in order to satisfy sometimes competing demands on their narratives. It is argued that culture makes its influence felt in ways that are not always obvious, particularly if the interviewee and interviewer share the same culture.

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Recreation Management and Youth Leadership, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 465-484). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 465-484). Also available on the Internet.

A revision of author's Habilitationsschrift, Hamburg, 1966. / On spine: Mittelhochdeutsche Versnovelle. "Abkürzungsverzeichnis" (bibliographical): p. 334-337.

Cindy Sherman’s photographic series, Untitled Film Stills, is an icon of postmodern art. The series is comprised of discrete single-frame narratives, which Sherman rendered in the visual vocabulary of mid-century cinematic publicity photography. One of the series’ most unifying features is its pervasive ambiguity, which Sherman has described as a conscious motivation behind the series. Despite the Stills’ continuous, international success, not every photograph in the series has merited uniform popularity, and some are largely absent from the greater circulation of popular and critical discourse. There is, in fact, significant variation in the circulation of individual Stills. I suggest that there is a spectrum of ambiguity in the photographs, and that this spectrum converges with the range of circulation. Within these spectra there are limits to the effectiveness of ambiguity. Therefore, the question that has governed my research is, “What is the threshold of ambiguity in Untitled Film Stills?” / text