Inaugural
Bill Randall and Dolores Furlong organized the first Narrative Matters conference after meeting as doctoral students at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.
Bill and Dolores wrote about their inspiration for the first conference in the editorial introduction of the McGill Journal of Education special issue on Narrative Matters published in 2005.
Topics:
The origin and impact of narrative theory in the humanities and social sciences
The function of narrative in politics, art, religion, education, and the media
Narrative and diversity (e.g., culture, ethnicity, gender, age)
Narrative perspectives on memory, identity, and community
Collecting and analyzing narratives in qualitative research
Narratives in therapeutic processes and relationships
Understanding and using our stories as reflective practitioners
The storied construction, and complexity, of everyday life
Outcomes:
Mary Catherine Bateson and Mark Freeman’s keynotes were published in Interchange, A Quarterly Review of Education, Volume 38 Issue 3 in 2007.