This article demonstrates that research findings may arise out of difference, difficulty, methodological clumsiness, and the kind of rich disequilibrium that masks itself as failure. The article tells the story of a problematic case study of Clayboy, a teenage cocaine dealer who fails to narrate as the author expects him to. Pushed to interpretive selfreflection by his many failures, the author learns to put aside received knowledge of narrative, delinquency, and violence and to attend instead to the internal logic of Clayboy's narrative practices. The article's concluding reflections reframe research as a kind of learning, thereby affirming the value of tenacity, the feasibility of crossing paradigms, and the possibility of finding insight in error.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Anderson, E. (1999). The code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York: Norton.
2.
Applebee, A. N. (1978). The child's concept of a story: Ages two to seventeen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
3.
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
4.
Davies, S. (1995). Leaps of faith: Shifting currents in critical sociology of education. American Journal of Sociology, 6, 1448-1478.
5.
Denzin, N. K. (1994). The art and politics of interpretation. In. N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 500-515). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
6.
Farrington, D. P. (1996). The explanation and prevention of youthful offending. In J. D. Hawkins (Ed.), Delinquency and crime: Current theories (pp. 68-148). New York: Cambridge University Press.
7.
Flavell, J. H. (1963). The developmental psychology of Jean Piaget. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand Company.
8.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books.
9.
Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 105-117). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
10.
Hones, D. F. (1998). Known in part: The transformational power of narrative inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 4, 225-248.
11.
Kincheloe, J. L., & McLaren, P. L. (1994). Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. In. N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 138-157). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
12.
Kohli, M. (1986). Social organization and subjective construction of the life course. In A. B. Sorenson, F. E. Weiner, & L. R. Sherrod (Eds.), Human development and the life course (pp. 271-292). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
13.
Labov, W. (1972). Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
14.
Rosenthal, G. (1993). Reconstruction of life stories: Principles of selection in generating stories for narrative biographical interviews. In R. Josselson & A. Lieblich (Vol. Eds.), The narrative study of lives (Vol. 1, pp. 59-91). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
15.
Sarris, G. (1993). Keeping Slug Woman alive: A holistic approach to American Indian texts. Berkeley: University of California Press.
16.
Sarris, G. (1994). Mabel McKay: Weaving the dream. Berkeley: University of California Press.
17.
Seale, C. (1999). Quality in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 5, 465-478.
18.
Shutze, F. (1992). Pressure and guilt: War experiences of a young German soldier and their biographical implications. International Sociology, 7, 187-208.
19.
Stein, N. L. (1988). The development of children's story telling skill. In M. B. Franklin & S. Barten (Eds.), Child language: A book of readings (pp. 282-297). New York: Oxford University Press.
20.
Thorndyke, P. W. (1977). Cognitive structures in comprehension and memory of narrative discourse. Cognitive Psychology, 9, 77-110.
21.
Van Mannen, J. (1988). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
22.
VanderStaay, S. L. (1992). Street lives: An oral history of homeless Americans. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers.
23.
VanderStaay, S. L. (1995). Bad kids: Narratives of schooling, delinquency and youth violence in drug city. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Iowa.
24.
Willis, P. (1977). Learning to labor: How working class kids get working class jobs. Westmead, UK: Saxon House.
