Life Histories

Erica R. Davila

Telling life stories is a form of learning and knowing about one another, be it a couple getting to know one another, a child and parent building their lives together, siblings sharing lived experiences, classmates sharing their thoughts, or strangers looking for conversation. Furthermore, life stories are the substance for fictional stories that are all around us, in print, audio, and visual media. Thus, the conversations/dialogs/stories/narratives that surface regarding education must bring individual lives to the forefront; through those lived experiences, alternate ways of thinking about the meaning of school may emerge. Life history research is an interdisciplinary cluster of approaches that use life stories—whether written, oral, or in other forms—as a primary source for social, cultural, and historical research. Where does life history research fit? It fits everywhere there is a life story to be discovered, told, and heard. How can life history methods be part of education research? ...

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