Careful what you ask for: reconsidering feminist epistemology and autobiographical narrative in research on sexual identity development

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Publication Type Journal Article
School or College College of Social & Behavioral Science
Department Psychology
Creator Diamond, Lisa
Title Careful what you ask for: reconsidering feminist epistemology and autobiographical narrative in research on sexual identity development
Date 2006
Description Feminist theory has had an undoubtable but inconsistent influence on developmental psychology. Although feminist perspectives have productively challenged developmental models centered on male experiences (Gilligan 1982) and have called attention to socialization practices that reproduce systematic gender inequalities (Bem 1993), more radical feminist perspectives on scientific epistemology and methodology have had considerably less influence. Recent research on the interpersonal construction of selfhood through autobiographical storytelling raises troubling questions about the extent to which qualitative investigations actually coconstruct the evelopmental phenomena they seek to investigate. My goal in this article is to elucidate how this dilemma has manifested itself in my own qualitative, longitudinal research on sexual identity development over the past ten years (Diamond 1998, 2000, 2003a, 2005a, 2005b) and to suggest how a more explicit integration of feminist epistemology with research on the developmental functions of autobiographical narrative can transform and advance the knowledge gained from developmentally oriented qualitative research.
Type Text
Publisher University of Chicago Press
First Page 471
Last Page 492
Subject Feminism; Epistemology; Autobiography
Subject LCSH Feminist theory; Feminist psychology; Developmental psychology
Language eng
Bibliographic Citation Diamond, L. (2006). Careful what you ask for: Reconsidering feminist epistemology and autobiographical narrative in research on sexual identity development. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 31, 471-92.
Rights Management (c) University of Chicago Press http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/loi/signs
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 105,279 Bytes
Identifier ir-main,2576
ARK ark:/87278/s6fx7v0v
Setname ir_uspace
ID 706110
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6fx7v0v
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