Oral Testimonies and Free Association Narrative Interviewing

The differences between Oral Testimonies and Free Association Narrative Interviewing is a very interesting reflection for investigations that use oral testimonies in History of Education. First of all it should be pointed out that the main difference between testimony and narrative concerns the structure of the discourse that makes up testimonies and this is an aspect that is almost always a little confusing, depending on the type of data available and the data collection structure (semi-structured interviews, narrative, biographical, etc.). Whereas testimony is reduced to a direct answer to the question, narrative presupposes an account in the form of a story told. It is in this sense that free associations should be observed, as it is natural that emotional aspects overlap with rational ones in the construction of the narrative. In these cases, for the analysis of the data, the methods applied in areas such as linguistics, psychology and sociology can be considered. I recommend this book by Hollway and Jefferson: Doing Qualitative Research Differently: Free Association, Narrative and the Interview Method.

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OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Rooney Pinto (March 23, 2023). Oral Testimonies and Free Association Narrative Interviewing. Socialis memoriae. Retrieved March 27, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/rd3d


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