This book focuses on narrative forms of research and inquiry in music education. As narrative approaches gain momentum, questions of methodology become salient. This research anthology highlights a diverse array of narrative methodologies and offers strategies for new researchers. The authors reflect transparently on how they did their narrative analyses, how they position themselves, and which narrative tradition(s) they align with.
The book has three parts. Part 1 clarifies and conceptualizes narrative approaches in music education, showing how narrative thinking can be combined with theoretical stances such as discourse analysis and phenomenology. Part 2 demonstrates how awareness of multi-layered dialogical meaning production can inform narrative research. In part 3, the book addresses performative narratives of musicians and educators. Narrative research offers valuable methods for arts-based research, because of its potential for being expressive and performative, as well as conceptual.