| Abstract: |
This qualitative study draws from the power of oral tradition to narrate aspects of a person's life. Oral history has the potential to mobilize the force of language as the researcher examines the student's lived history. I explore the life of a resilient young woman who has overcome significant childhood adversity to graduate from college and matriculate into post-graduate studies. The slogan, "Education = hope" is a fitting descriptor for her life. Oral history covers the narrator's life story and begins with talk, valuing diverse ways of knowing. An oral history interview renders explicit the subject's lived history, whether childhood or present times. Women interacting among women can experience a "difference of ease;" they can "speak more freely, more expansively" in a less formal relationship than traditional interviewing provides (Freeman & Schmidt, 2000). The author draws from feminine scholarship of Noddings (1984) and Gilligan (1982), and biographical scholarship (Goodson, 1991), to analyze this woman's story. In doing so, the author emphasizes the imperative of studying her history of childhood adversity for understanding social justice, ethics of care, and a woman's voice. In this oral history, the life of a young woman who has overcome significant childhood adversity to graduate from college and matriculate into post-graduate studies is explored. |