Since occupational science emerged there has been significant debate about which research methods are appropriate for the study of humans as occupational beings.In parallel with trends in other disciplines, the use of storied ways of understanding human experience has been given particular attention in recent times. While there is much in the literature already about narrative/biographic approaches to research, there is some confusion about the terminology. There is particular lack of clarity in relation to how to analyse interview data to produce narrative accounts of human experience. This article is based on our experience of using these methods in a study to explore the occupational nature of men living with HIV. While there has been a relatively large amount of research into this group of people, it has usually been undertaken by social scientists and medical practitioners. There has been very little work published that has explicitly examined the occupational nature of living with HIV. It is not the aim of this article to report the methods and findings of the research in detail but to present an overview of the processes and issues. As such, this article will begin by briefly outlining the problems faced by occupational scientists due to the nature of occupation itself. An overview of the use of stories, including discussion of some of the key terms, will then be followed by an example of one method of gathering storied data about occupation. The difficulties of narrative analysis will be outlined, and one example of a form of narrative analysis will then be presented. The article will end by briefly highlighting two issues which are particularly contentious for narrative researchers: trustworthiness and anonymity.
While analysis of what takes people into prostitution has been widely documented, this article explores the way adult '30 something' prostitutes consider their futures and the ideas they have about leaving or staying in prostitution. Drawing on contested notions of prostitution as 'work' and the broader context of life-history research with sex workers, it explores the experiences that frame prostitutes' own narratives about their working lives and futures. An illustrative range of ve lifehistory accounts from British sex workers are analysed as 'imagined' curriculum vitae, listing emergent categories of: aliases, education, interests, thoughts on retirement, nancial planning, getting older, hopes and ambitions and fantasy futures. These 'stories' are analysed looking at ways they inform on-going feminist debates about the realities of (voluntary adult) sex workers' concerns. They point again to the relevance for sex workers and feminists of understanding sex work as 'a job'.
This paper evaluates a case-study work-based learning (WBL) programme for nal year health studies undergraduates, analysing key characteristics, and reporting bene ts and tensions that result. It triangulates evidence from learners, community agencies and teachers. Cross-fertilisation of ideas between the academy and community agencies, and the viability of a very short term WBL programme were highlighted as positive features of the scheme, aided by clear student learning agreements. However, student con dence issues, struggles with self-directed learning and assessment of practical skills represented tensions, especially for ethnic minority and part-time learners. For community agencies, some lack of supervisor engagement, limited contribution to the taught-course curriculum and frequent structural reorganisation presented dif culties. Tensions for teachers related to reconciling academic and community enterprise goals, embracing resource pressures, tting WBL within wider curriculum development and scaling up from small scale WBL programmes.
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