“Myself and I”: A multi-vocal approach to the self-narratives of gifted children

Lisette Dillon Dialogical Self 2008 – CAMBRIDGEQUT, Brisbane, AUSTRALIA - Email: lisetted@iinet.net.au

The big picture

CHILDREN’S PARTICIPATION

A global agenda involving the right of children to not wait until they are “grown-ups” to be heard and to be taken seriously

Research trends

Impact on early adolescent identity

EDUCATIONTeens, “tweens”... andgifted..?

MARGINALIZATION? RESEARCH

INTERNETPEERS

“EXPERTS”

GLOBAL FORCES

Identified as

Ten children

GIFTED

10-14 year olds

AUSTRALIA Approx: 400, 0002% of the population (AAEGT, 2008)

Children who demonstrate, or maybe capable of demonstrating, advanced abilities in one or more domains of: intellectual; creative;socio-affective or sensorimotor(Gagné, 2003)

Definition

Identification : one qualitative tool (parent, teacher, peer, self nomination)and one quantitative measure (scores from standardised aptitude or achievement tests) Gifted Education Professional Devt. Package (DEST, 2005)

My questions

• What do the “voices” of gifted children say about their lives?

• How do gifted children construct and express a sense of self in their journal narratives?

• What do the “voices” of gifted children say about their lives?

• How do gifted children construct and express a sense of self in their journal narratives?

Multi-voicing in theory

SELF

(Hermans, Kempen & van Loon, 1992)

Trans-disciplinaryNarrative Agentic

Self as a self-space: an “inner chat-room”for many different but connected voices

Over 6 months

This is about me

and my life!Today I

discovered..

THE LISTENING GUIDE (Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg, Bertsch, 2003)

Self-narratives that contain many “I”,“me” and “my” statements

“Thin is beautiful” “become famous”

“smart girls don’t get

guys”

I should’ve tried

harder...?

Teachers are so

unfair ...

External worldEg. peers, society

Internal world reason and emotion Eg Voice of regret

Attached to rolesEg. The studentEach voice, or “I

Position” produces a different narrative.

#A Venice Forever

Contrapuntal voices

What the voices tell us...• Digital journals are ‘saturated’ with voices – eg. email addresses: wildcatgirl;

blitzthunder; gimmelife; piggyinthemiddle.

• Self-disclosure does not occur readily and will fluctuate – voices need to be looked at over an extended period.

• Very conscious of audience - stay with ‘safe’ topics (voice of caution)– unwilling to take risks regarding social acceptance

• Use a variety strategies to persuade the audience and express themselves: symbols; different fonts; creative vocabulary; literary devices.

• Number of voices not closely linked with age – finding a language to express complexity appears to be linked with age.

• Express strong voices of frustration; anger; exuberance (“over the top”); independence; distrust ; perfectionism; resistance to adult agendas; humour; anxiety about achievement.

• Highly variable – (heterogeneous)

•Multi-voicing is a way of showing respect to one’s Narrators (Czarniawaska, 2004).

• Multi-voicing is a promising means of contributing to identity research (Kiegelmann, 2007).