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On dove’s wing : life story narratives of conflict resolution learners from the Justice Institute of British Columbia

University of British Columbia

My thesis is a 4-part narrative study of the learning associated with the Conflict Resolution Certificate Program at the Justice Institute of B.C. (British Columbia). This is a comprehensive continuing education program considered by many to be the most reputable of its type in Canada. The Justice Institute offers courses in conflict resolution, mediation, and negotiation through the Centre for Conflict Resolution Training. I define narrative broadly as a framework for interpreting life experiences. There are two questions that guide my research: (a) What is the experience of conflict resolution learning for adults? and (b) how does this experience fit into their biographies? I use a life story approach to explore these questions in the context of my own life and the lives of 5 other participants: Kate, John, Kevin, Sandy, and Sydney. A life story is taken to mean an account of someone's life, in whole or in part, shared with another person. I have written the life stories in the thesis using autobiographical and biographical methods. My own story is based on a series of personal reflections, journal entries, and my interactions with other research participants. It appears in two parts, at the beginning and end of the thesis, to distinguish my roles as researcher learner- storyteller from the roles of those interviewed. Data for their narratives come from two individual interviews, two focus groups, and a written life story. I use information from these sources to reconstruct a story for each participant that highlights the meaning of conflict resolution learning. Learners for this study were selected using different criteria. I was familiar with 4 of the 5 participants. Some degree of prior relationship was important because it allowed me to collect the personal stories of other people. All of the participants, except Kate, had graduated from the Conflict Resolution Certificate Program during the past 3 years. The life stories, including my own, are the primary narratives. They are preceded by several chapters which I call "secondary narratives" because they contextualize and serve as frames for entering into the life stories. Secondary narratives include: stories about my research, accounts of conflict resolution training at the Justice Institute, reference to three socio-historical movements which framed the evolution of conflict resolution in Canada, and a chapter on three adult learning theories. The three movements are the human potential movement, ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution), and the historical role played by the Mennonites as peacekeepers. I refer, in this last context, to VORP (Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program). The three learning theories are constructivism, socially situated learning, and transformative learning. I situate the primary and secondary narratives in an interpretive/ phenomenological framework. There are six characteristics from this tradition which I use and describe from my point of reference as the researcher: (a) reflecting on and interpreting learners' personal experiences, (b) honouring participants' knowledge, (c) attending to narrative as craft, (d) respecting complexity, (e) modelling empathy and collaboration, and (f) integrating individual narratives of learning into broader frameworks of social discourse. After presenting the life stories in part 3, I analyze and interpret them in part 4. When working on this final stage, I themed the narratives collaboratively with each participant and then looked at the stories as a whole by myself. I discovered that the meaning of conflict resolution learning, for those I interviewed, can be expressed as five variations of authenticity. I explore these variations through a series of reflective questions and elaborations. My work concludes with thoughts about my own story and some considerations for the use of narrative in educational research.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-03-16

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/6077

Education

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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