Rossiter / A NARRATIVE APPROACH

ADULT EDUCATION
TO DEVELOPMENT
QUARTERLY / November 1999

A NARRATIVE APPROACH TO
DEVELOPMENT: IMPLICATIONS
FOR ADULT EDUCATION

MARSHA ROSSITER
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

Adult educators have relied heavily on stage and phase theories of human development to under-
stand adults as learners and the place of learning in their lives. Such models of development have
been questioned in terms of the developmental ends posited and the related implications for
practitioners. This article describes a narrative approach to adult development and suggests
that such a perspective holds rich potential for enhancing our understanding of adult learners
and the possible roles educators might play in learners’ developmental processes. Key orienta-
tions that constitute a narrative approach are discussed; they focus on narrative knowing and
meaning making, and the temporal, retrospective, contextual nature of narrative development.

Stage and phase models of development have long dominated adult educators’
views of learning and change in adulthood. Discussions of adult development in the
literature (Boucouvalas & Krupp, 1989; Daloz, 1986; Merriam & Caffarella, 1991;
Tennant & Pogson, 1995) reflect a heavy emphasis on models that derive from Erik-
son’s (1982) psychosocial stages, Piaget’s (1972) cognitive stages, Kohlberg’s
(1983) stages of moral development, or Loevinger’s (1976) stages of ego develop-
ment. Other familiar names in the literature of adult education—for example,
Fowler (1981), Levinson (1978), Perry (1981), Gould (1978), and Belenky, Clin-
chy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986)—describe sequences of development in the life
course that are characterized by identifiable stages or phases. Tennant (1988) sug-
gests that adult educators have favored theories and frameworks that offer stages
because they give us “roadmaps” to follow. As practice-oriented educators, we
sometimes tend to “latch on to an easily assimilated theory, one which clearly dif-
ferentiates and orders the ‘phases’or ‘stages’of life and which advances an unambi-
guous account of the process and end point of development” (pp. 64-65). In spite of
this proclivity, the long-standing belief that stage models are the primary and indis-
pensable means of understanding adult development has, in recent years, been

MARSHA ROSSITER is at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Correspondence concerning this ar-
ticle should be sent to Marsha Rossiter, Division of Continuing Education, University of Wisconsin,
Oshkosh, 800 Algoma Boulevard, Oshkosh, WI 54901; e-mail: rossiter@uwosh.edu.
ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Vol. 50 No. 1, November 1999 56-71
© 1999 American Association for Adult and Continuing Education

56
 Rossiter / A NARRATIVE APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT 57

questioned. Alternative and/or complementary perspectives on development are

being explored; a narrative approach to development is one such perspective.
The purpose of this article is to describe a narrative approach to understanding
adult development and to suggest that such an orientation holds rich potential for
enhancing our understanding of adult learners, the place of learning in their lives,
and the possible roles educators might play in learners’ developmental processes.
The first section outlines two areas in which stage and phase models of develop-
ment have been questioned, the universality of developmental ends posited by
prevalent theories and the related implications for practitioners. The main body of
this article discusses five orientations that are fundamental to understanding a nar-
rative approach to development. Finally, the value and potential contributions of the
narrative approach are addressed.

QUESTIONS REGARDING STAGE AND PHASE MODELS

OF DEVELOPMENT
As noted above, some adult educators question the assumptions and the value of
stage and phase models of development. One set of questions has to do with the
accepted endpoints and direction of development as portrayed in those models.
Courtenay (1994) suggests that the final stages are too vaguely defined in these
models of development, and this ambiguity with respect to developmental endpoint
limits their value to the adult education practitioner. Perhaps more important, the
generalizibility of psychological models of development to populations different
from those on which they were originally based has been questioned (Courtenay,
1994; Flannery, 1994). At issue are developmental variations that may be associ-
ated with gender, class, and cultural differences. As Courtenay points out, “That
most [stage and life event] models are based on male samples is acknowledged as a
critical weakness” (p. 152). The ends posited by those models—autonomy and
independence—are challenged by theories that highlight the importance of rela-
tionship and affiliation as developmental goals, particularly for women. Flannery
(1994) notes, “White male developmental models have been emphasized, and theo-
ries of learning that stress individualism, linear thinking, and Anglo European val-
ues of self-sufficiency have been generalized to all adults as ‘universal’” (p. 17). To
assume a universality in prevalent adult development theory that, in fact, reflects
dominant cultural values leads to devaluation of alternative developmental paths.
As these insights reflect, we have become increasingly aware of the cultural and
historical embeddedness of any theory of development.
A second cluster of questions about the usefulness of prevalent stage and phase
models of development has to do with what action they indicate for the practitioner.
Courtenay (1994) suggests that models of psychological development may be so
numerous and varied that they can offer very little practical guidance to the practi-
tioner, and therefore, their value to the field has been overrated. He questions the
58 ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY / November 1999

feasibility of putting a developmental understanding of learners to use in an actual

practice setting. He says,

Let us assume that all learners in a class of 15 could be typed by stage or level of self-
identity, resulting in 15 individuals at different developmental levels. How feasible is
it to configure 15 different learning approaches based on the learners’ levels of devel-
opment? (pp. 151-152)

Even if we judge it feasible to respond to each learner’s developmental profile,

the larger question is this: What should be the adult educator’s role in fostering or
encouraging development or growth? Is it the place of the adult educator to dislodge
the learner from her embeddedness in her life world or to create cognitive and psy-
chological disequilibrium for the learner in order to precipitate movement toward a
higher level of development? Kasworm (1988) addresses the question of the educa-
tor’s role in terms of the tension between stability and change in the learner’s life;
she concludes that adult educators should encourage change and development in
learners but that we should exercise great sensitivity and care in doing so. She
makes the very important point that as adult educators, we cannot help being in-
volved in the psychosocial development of our learners. But, the question remains:
Where is the line that separates challenging and helping learners achieve their own
ends, from pushing learners into what we (or our developmental theories) consider
to be growth and development?
The question is raised by Daloz (1988) in his story of Gladys Who Refused to
Grow. He describes a 60-something-year-old student in a nontraditional degree
program who does not develop the critical thinking skills that he, as her adviser,
tries to encourage. He writes,

It is finally clear to me that not all students grow from their education. Some people
find a point of equilibrium and remain there, resting. And despite the best efforts of
their teachers, may stay there the rest of their lives. We andragogical missionaries
don’t talk much about these people. (p. 7)

Clearly, Daloz’s comments reflect a view of growth shaped by an acceptance of par-

ticular developmental goals and ends. He wonders whether educators have a right to
“intrude” into the lives of learners, to insist that they question the habitual meanings
that give continuity and stability to their lives.
As is clear, we cannot ignore the ethical dimensions of either of these
issues—the consideration of the endpoints of development and the role of the adult
educator in learners’ development. The assumption of any developmental goal or
end reflects a judgment as to what is of value in human life; our choice of develop-
mental theory is, therefore, necessarily an ethical one. And, any position with
regard to what action or stance an educator should take is likewise a matter of valua-
tion, a judgment as to what constitutes “the good” in the education of adults.
 Rossiter / A NARRATIVE APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT 59

So, how are we to think of adult development, and how are we to situate the
learning experience within the life course of adult learners? How are we to under-
stand the direction and pattern of adult learners’ development, and how are we to
respond? It is the thesis of this article that narrative offers a perspective on develop-
ment that enhances our understanding of learning and change throughout the life
course by reframing issues of developmental ends and the role of educators in fos-
tering development in terms of storied meaning making. The narrative approach to
development is based on an appreciation of narrative as a basic structure of human
meaning and the application of the metaphor of story to the life course. Such an ori-
entation, as presented in this article, complements stage and phase models of devel-
opment by directing our attention to the experiential, storied context within which
developmental changes are lived.

A NARRATIVE APPROACH
TO ADULT DEVELOPMENT

Overview of a Narrative Perspective

What specifically is meant by “a narrative approach” to development? The idea
of narrative as a way of thinking about human development draws from the intellec-
tual traditions of various disciplines including literary theory, cognitive psychol-
ogy, theology, and philosophy. The application of narrative to matters of develop-
ment and learning is an emerging, evolving area of inquiry, and thus, a rich variety
of views are under discussion. In most general terms, we can say that a narrative
approach to development looks at the storied nature of development and considers
story as metaphor for human life. Key orientations that, considered collectively,
describe a sense of what is meant by the narrative approach to development are the
following: (a) Narrative knowing is based on a constructivist, interpretive episte-
mology. (b) Narrative is a central structure in human meaning making; thus, the life
course and individual identity are experienced as story. (c) Temporality and narra-
tive are integrally related; time is constitutive of meaning. (d) Narrative is histori-
cal; thus, development can be understood retrospectively, as an interpretation of the
life story. And (e) individual and cultural narratives are interrelated. The sections
that follow present a fuller discussion of each of these elements of narrative as it
pertains to adult development.

Narrative Knowing

A narrative mode of thought. Underlying a narrative approach to development is

a way of knowing that differs from the rationalism and objectivism of scientific
knowing. Bruner (1986) contrasts the applications of the two modes of thought, the
pardigmatic and the narrative.
60 ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY / November 1999

[The scientific or “paradigmatic” mode] deals in general causes . . . and makes use of
procedures to assure verifiable reference and to test for empirical truth. . . . The imagi-
native application of the paradigmatic mode leads to good theory, tight analysis, logi-
cal proof, sound argument, and empirical discovery guided by reasoned hypothesis.
The imaginative application of the narrative mode leads instead to good stories,
gripping drama, believable (although not necessarily “true”) historical accounts. It
deals in human and human-like intention and action and the vicissitudes and conse-
quences that mark their course. (pp. 12-13)

The two modes of knowing, he asserts, reflect two different cognitive functions,
two approaches to understanding reality that are quite separate; one is not reducible
to the other, nor does one develop from the other. The criteria for judging the valid-
ity of each differ: “A good story and a well-formed argument are different natural
kinds . . . Arguments convince one of their truth, stories of their lifelikeness”
(Bruner, 1986, p. 11).
Polkinghorne (1988) also contrasts the narrative knowing of the human sciences
with the knowledge produced through the physical sciences. He conceptualizes
human life as existing in three realms: the material realm, the organic realm, and the
realm of meaning. His point is that the physical sciences were developed to study
things outside the realm of meaning. However, many of the human sciences, which
do study matters that fall within the realm of meaning, have modeled themselves
after the physical sciences. As Polkinghorne says of the human sciences, they “do
not produce knowledge that leads to the prediction and control of human experi-
ence; they produce, instead, knowledge that deepens and enlarges the understand-
ing of human experience” (p. 159). Such knowledge organizes events into inte-
grated, meaningful unities; “facts” are arranged into sequences rather than into
categories. Narrative knowing, in contrast to scientific knowing in the positivist tra-
dition, is concerned more with human intention and meaning than with discrete
facts or events, more with coherence than with logic, and more with understanding
than with predictability and control.

Interpretive aspects of narrative. A narrative orientation to human development

is essentially interpretive. Life stories, like literary stories, are made up of that
which is discovered and created, that which is remembered from the past as well as
a constructed understanding of it.

It follows that, when we try to understand the actions of others, we should function as
literary interpreters and hermeneuticists, treating actions as texts of possible meaning,
and not function as empirical scientists, aiming to map objective reality into our mod-
els of prediction. (Irwin, 1996, p. 109)

Cohler (1982) likens a narrative approach to life-span development to historical

interpretation. As in a historical account, the “facts” of a personal past are under-
stood and interpreted differently from different temporal and experiential perspec-
tives. The personal life narrative, at any given time, is that particular interpretation
 Rossiter / A NARRATIVE APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT 61

of events and experiences that represents the most coherent and satisfactory ac-
count. Cohler contrasts this interpretive orientation with the traditional approach to
developmental theory. The scientific approach emphasizes prediction and explana-
tion of developmental change, focusing on patterns of stability and ordered change
across the life span. The narrative, or interpretive approach, however, is based on
the assumption that “lives change over time in ways not necessarily predictable”
(p. 210). It focuses more on the impact of unanticipated changes and the ways in
which people make sense of, or interpret, those changes and less on the search for
ordered change. Applied to developmental theory, an interpretive orientation pre-
cludes the predetermination of particular valuations of behaviors or events.

Narrative Meaning

Narrative as the structure of meaning making. At the core of a narrative perspec-

tive on development is the idea that narrative is the means through which humans
make meaning of experience (Bruner, 1990; Cohler, 1982; Kerby, 1991; Polking-
horne, 1988; Sarbin, 1986; Tappan, 1991). This “narratory principle” as proposed
by Sarbin (1986) is, “Human beings, think, perceive, imagine and make moral
choices according to narrative structures” (p. 8). Polkinghorne (1988) describes the
basic assumption of narrative meaning making.

Narrative is a scheme by means of which human beings give meaning to their experi-
ence of temporality and personal actions. Narrative meaning functions to give form to
the understanding of a purpose to life and to join everyday actions and events into epi-
sodic units. It provides a framework for understanding the past events of one’s life and
for planning future actions. It is the primary scheme by means of which human exis-
tence is rendered meaningful. (p. 11)

Drawing on his research in child psychology and language development, Bruner

(1990) suggests that this predisposition to organize experience into a narrative form
exists in children, prior to language development. He contends, “Our capacity to
render experience in terms of narrative is an instrument for making meaning that
dominates much of life in culture—from soliloquies at bedtime to the weighing of
testimony in our legal system” (p. 97). Embedded within the idea of narrative mean-
ing making is the constitutive quality of language and language forms (Bruner,
1990; Kerby, 1991; Polkinghorne, 1988). Language does not merely transmit
meaning; its very structure imposes some order on events that thereby influences
meaning. Narrative form is, thus, an instrument of cultural, as well as individual,
meaning making.
At a more personal level, the narrative structure of human meaning is evident in
our everyday experience. If we reflect for a moment about how we communicate
with students, colleagues, friends, and family every day, we recognize the centrality
of storytelling in our lives. We communicate our experiences to one another
62 ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY / November 1999

narratively. “Whenever it is necessary to report ‘the way it really happened’ . . . the

natural impulse is to tell a story, to compose a narrative that recounts the actions and
events of interest in some kind of temporal sequence” (Tappan, 1991, p. 8). Narra-
tive connects separate, isolated events into whole sequences, such that events can be
understood within a context, or meaning frame (Kerby, 1991). Thus, life as narra-
tive is integral to understanding the experience of development and change over the
life course. As Freeman (1984) states, “The study of the life course . . . demands the
acknowledgment of its narrative structure. More than a simple mapping of discrete
and isolated events—whether they be particular or general—it is, in a distinct
sense, an ongoing story to be told” (p. 3, emphasis added).

Self as narrative. Central also to the narrative perspective is the idea that the self
is not a fixed entity, an autonomous agent, moving through a developmental
sequence, but rather, the self is an unfolding story. This, of course, is an extension of
the idea that narrative is a primary structure of human meaning; as we understand
the world and our experiences narratively, so also do we understand and construct
the self as narrative. The self, in this view, really is constituted of the narratives of
experience—the stories we tell about ourselves in order to explain ourselves to our-
selves (Freeman, 1991). Or, as Bruner (1990) puts it, the self-narrative is the form
through which the self as narrator depicts and makes meaning of the self as protago-
nist. How one tells one’s life stories, how one selects and frames the stories, both
reveals and creates the self.
Focusing specifically on identity formation, McAdams’s (1985) life story model
casts the “problem” of identity as that of arriving at a life story that makes sense,
that provides some continuity and purpose. In his words, “The process of identity
formation proceeds throughout adulthood and the outcome of the process—the cre-
ated identity per se—is a dynamic, evolving life story” (p. 29). As story, identity
includes narrative elements of plot, character, setting, scene, and theme. And like
narrative, it involves temporal movement, an unfolding of self through time. It is the
integration of past, present, and future into narrative that gives an individual a sense
of continuity necessary for identity formation.

Temporality

Temporal dimension of lived experience. This leads us to a consideration of tem-

porality and the constitutive processes of movement through time; both the past and
the future are constitutive of the meaning of the present. The temporal quality of
narrative suggests bidirectional interactions among past, present, and future, rather
than a unidirectional relationship in which what happened in the past “caused” the
present. Irwin (1996) describes the past, present, and future of the narrative self:
“The past is based on our sifted, selected, and continuously reconstructed memo-
ries; the present unfolds in a nonlinear and multidimensionally sequencing; the
 Rossiter / A NARRATIVE APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT 63

future is an imaginative projection based upon our purposes, goals, and fictions”
(p. 111).
Whereas a linear view of time consists of a succession of nows or static points in
time, narrative suggests a flow of time that accommodates the confluence of past,
present, and future in the process of meaning making. The “having been” of the past
and the “not yet” of the future both constitute the meaning of being in the present.
What we care about determines the trajectory of the developmental path and the
meaning we give to it. As Leonard (1994) says, “Temporally, the not-yet belongs to
the now because we exist in terms of what matters to us” (p. 54).

Temporality in the construction of the life narrative. The temporal dimension of

narrative as it relates to meaning making over the life course has been explored by
Stephen Crites (1986). Insights from his work may be particularly useful in under-
standing adult learning. According to Crites, the past is expressed as recollected
story and the future through projected scenario. Because the past has actually been
lived, the recollected story of the past can be richly elaborated, complete, and
detailed. Crites likens recollecting the story of the past to an archeological dig—we
sift through the material of the past to piece together an understanding of it, to recol-
lect a coherent story. A sense of self comes into existence only through being recol-
lected out of the past. In contrast, the future, because it has not been lived, is not
available for recollection and therefore cannot offer the same level of completeness
and detail as the recollected past. As Crites says, “An image of the future is vague
and sketchy, a story incomplete and thin” (p. 164). The future is expressed narra-
tively as a “loose scenario” projected from the present.
So both the past and the future are experienced and expressed narratively. But,
according to Crites (1986), each requires a different narrative strategy. The narra-
tive strategy appropriate for the past is recollection, as expressed in the story,
whereas the strategy for the future is most appropriately characterized by hope. A
problem arises, developmentally, when we confuse one with the other. For exam-
ple, when we attach hope to the past, hoping for what was not and cannot be in the
past, we lose the actual recollected story of the past and are left with an insuffi-
ciently elaborated self-story. Likewise, when we engage in recollection in connec-
tion with the future, we project a possibility so completely into the future that we
seem to recollect the future before it has happened. Then we lose the projected sce-
nario, the openness to actual possibilities. In short, a confusion of the two narrative
strategies results in an inability to locate oneself in the past or in the future.
A second insight from Crites’s (1986) work has to do with the temporal direction
of the construction of the self-narrative. This has particular relevance for adult edu-
cation as it brings into focus, in the context of the life narrative, the tension between
stability and change, between identity and transformation. Crites suggests that we
can approach the future from two perspectives. One view highlights the movement
from the past into the future. The starting point is the recollected self, the con-
structed story that constitutes one’s identity. This self is carried into the future,
64 ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY / November 1999

which is seen as threatening in that it holds the potential for the destruction or
alteration of this identity. In this view, the self is agentic, moving into the future with
plans, expectations, and designs. The action of the self is to preserve itself in the
face of changing circumstances. The other perspective suggests an opposite direc-
tion of movement, from the future back to the present. That is, the present is born of
a vision of the future. Rather than being seen as a threat to the self, the future is ever
pregnant with hope and possibilities. Here the self is subject, the “me” of the self-
story more than the “I” who is the author of the story. As such, the self-subject is
receptive to the possibilities of the future. This stance is characterized by hope more
than by recollection.
The present moment is the meeting place of the past and future. It is the balance
point between identity and self-transcendence, the decision point between continu-
ity and transformation. To appreciate the distinction between moving into the
future from the past and moving into the present from the future provides insight
into the attitudes and behaviors of adult learners. We can understand the resistance
to significant learning among adult learners when we understand the self as a story
recollected from the past, the integrity and continuity of which is threatened by
change. We can think of learners in our experience (or colleagues or friends) whose
self-stories are so fully elaborated, even into the future, that little room is left for the
possibility of change. Likewise, we can also call to mind those who seem, as Crites
(1986) describes, to apply hope to the past rather than to tell a recollected story of it.

Narrative Development as Retrospective

The work of Mark Freeman (1984, 1991, 1993) is an elaboration of the idea that
development can be thought of as interpretive and historical. Like many within
adult education, Freeman questions the universality of developmental endpoints as
presented in stage or phase models. He begins with the position that development is
necessarily moral in that the very idea of progressive movement implies some con-
ception of where it ought to be heading. And he poses the following question: If
there are no universally agreed on criteria by which to measure developmental
progress, how can we speak of development at all? His response is that develop-
ment is essentially retrospective. We do not need to conceive of development as for-
ward movement toward prescribed ends, but rather, development can be viewed as
the process of reconstructing or rewriting ends. The desirability of various develop-
mental outcomes emerges through the process itself. One can assess the develop-
mental significance and value of any life event or transformation only retrospec-
tively. Freeman (1991) describes,

The trajectory of developmental transformation can only be told in retrospect, after

one has arrived at a position from which to judge the preferability of who and what one
has become over who and what one was. In other words . . . development, rather than
 Rossiter / A NARRATIVE APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT 65

being seen as a teleologically driven push toward the future, is instead to be seen as a
never-ending retrospective story of transformation. (p. 88)

The never-ending character of this developmental view, as Freeman acknowledges,

is not satisfying to those who look for fixed criteria by which to judge developmen-
tal progress. One can never arrive finally at the pinnacle of development because it
is never fixed but always open to renegotiation.
In Freeman’s (1991) view, this absence of a preset endpoint of development is
desirable because it removes the “ceiling” from the process of development. One is
not finished with development even when one achieves formal operational thought,
postconventional reasoning, universalizing faith, or any other “highest stage.” Such
a view, a departure from the organismic growth-maturity-decay metaphor, affirms
the possibility and necessity of growth to the end of life. Freeman suggests a con-
nection between the organismic models of development and the psychological
experience of aging as decline. If the story of development we tell is constitutive of
the meaning of the experience, it is clear that we should seriously consider the psy-
chological implications of regarding development as an unending process.

Interconnection of Individual
and Cultural Narratives
Finally, a narrative approach to development acknowledges the interconnected-
ness of individual and cultural narratives. Individual life narratives are situated
within a myriad of overlapping familial, religious, socioeconomic and cultural con-
texts. The narrative of any individual life is an expression of, an embodiment of,
these contexts and systems of meaning within which it is lived. In this sense, a nar-
rative orientation to development is radically contextual. It moves away from the
transactional views in which the person and environment are considered as separate
entities, acting on and influencing each other in various ways. The narrative orien-
tation is more akin to Vygotskian contextualism that views the person in context as
a unity. Expressed narratively, this unity is the storied life that is, by definition, a
construction of both psychological and sociocultural elements.
Narrative psychologists vary according to their focus on the individually versus
the socially constructed narrative (Singer, 1996). Theorists who embrace a per-
sonological orientation (e.g., McAdams) emphasize the individual’s processes of
storying and meaning making within a cultural context, whereas social construc-
tionist theorists (e.g., K. J. Gergen, Sarbin) are interested in “how culture writes the
story of lives” (Singer, 1996, p. 452). What is clear across this spectrum of theory is
that dominant cultural narratives influence the meanings, the narrative forms, and
the “scripts” that are accessible and acceptable to individuals. Thus, narrative form
is an instrument of both cultural and individual meaning. Every culture has a pool of
acceptable narratives, a set of stories and story forms, through which human action
66 ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY / November 1999

and intent are interpreted, explained, and understood (Bruner, 1986, 1990, 1996;
Cohler, 1982; Tappan, 1989, 1991). Developmental processes involve the individu-
al’s recognition, selection, rejection, and/or adaptation of these available narrative
forms as she or he constructs her or his own meanings. The intelligibility and fol-
lowability of individual life narratives are assessed according to culturally shared
understandings.

CONTRIBUTIONS OF A NARRATIVE APPROACH

TO OUR UNDERSTANDING OF ADULT LEARNING
This article began by outlining two areas in which stage and phase models of
development have been questioned—the universality of developmental goals and
the appropriate role of adult educators in fostering the developmental progress of
learners. In the following section, I will return to those issues and suggest how a
narrative approach to development might inform our responses to those concerns.

Narrative Development and Stage Theory

Singer (1996) asserts that if we understand development narratively, we are
“forced to question the original stage theory approach to adult development” (p. 454).
He points out that although Erikson’s psychosocial stages are “sensitive” to cultural
influences, they were conceived as governed by the epigenetic principle and “per-
ceived in quasi-biological terms and as part of the evolutionary inheritance of what
it meant to be human” (p. 454). The narrative orientation, as this article has out-
lined, holds that developmental progress is shaped contextually and interpreted
subjectively.
Does this orientation reject the value of stage and phase models? Certainly not.
A narrative approach to development complements other perspectives on develop-
ment and in the process enriches our overall understanding of change throughout
adulthood. The contribution of the narrative orientation is twofold. First, the con-
textual nature of narrative encourages us to explore the ways in which developmen-
tal patterns, situated within the individual life course, are influenced by cultural
meaning systems. Second, the idea of the storied life adds elements of narra-
tive—characters, plot, theme—to our understanding of developmental processes.
We can appreciate developmental change more richly in terms of the self-stories
that document, commemorate, and define those transitions. And, we can entertain a
multiplicity of developmental trajectories, as we are able to see normative phases or
changes in the context of life narratives.

Developmental Ends and Goals

The narrative understanding of development is grounded in the stories that peo-

ple tell of their lives and their own valuation of the events of their lives. Consider
 Rossiter / A NARRATIVE APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT 67

again the story of Gladys (Daloz, 1988). One incident in the story is that she is upset
with an unsatisfactory grade on an autobiographical project she prepared for a writ-
ing class. The criticism of her paper is that it is “too personal”; she has not distanced
herself from her own experience in her writing. Gladys seems unable or unwilling
to step outside of her life story to critically reflect on it and to question the assump-
tions that underlie it. Daloz (1988) concludes that some students “just refuse to
grow” (p. 7). They do not change because they are too embedded in their existing
lives, and “Sometimes it is just plain simpler to stay right where they are” (p. 7).
Perhaps this is true.
But the issue here is our “educator view” of growth and our assessment that stu-
dents such as Gladys have somehow failed, or that we as educators have failed
them. Such a view comes from an “educator’s story” in which the capacities to think
critically and to question one’s beliefs are the valued goals toward which the plot of
development should move. But was this Gladys’s story? Daloz (1988) tells us that
she went ahead to complete her degree. She expanded her autobiographical paper
into a book about her life’s work and had it privately printed. It was reviewed by the
local paper, presumably read by Gladys’s neighbors and friends, and was “a great
source of pride to her and her family” (p. 7). At this point in her life, we might
speculate on Gladys’s response if we were to ask her—following Freeman’s (1984)
suggestion—to assess the “preferability of who and what [she] has become over
who and what [she] was” (p. 88). It is entirely likely that her valuation of her devel-
opment, and growth, would be quite positive.
The point here is that the narrative orientation emphasizes the subjective and ret-
rospective interpretation of how one has developed. It accommodates a diversity of
developmental paths without privileging certain of those paths and devaluing oth-
ers. To the extent that we as adult educators can hear the stories of real people, we
are more able to understand, respect, and respond to the ends that are important to
them.

The Role of the Adult Educator

The narrative approach to development recasts the basic question related to
practice by shifting emphasis to the learners’ lived experience. The question, both
in practice and research, becomes: What is the developmental narrative this learner
is living? What is the plot of her or his story? Is she a romantic hero on a quest? Is he
a victim, overcome by the evil forces of the world (or the educational institution)?
And, what is the meaning of this learning experience in this learner’s story? Is it an
adventure? A punishment? A gift? A redemption? An understanding of the rela-
tionship between learners’ self-narratives and their experiences of learning will
yield useful insights for the practitioner.

Facilitating learning. The narrative perspective points to several implications

for the adult educator’s role in facilitating learning. First, the processes of change
68 ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY / November 1999

and transformation in adulthood are integrally related to the construction of self-

stories. As Bruner (1990) has pointed out, change stimulates the storying process. It
is through narrative that people renegotiate meaning as they deal with what is out of
the ordinary. In this renegotiation, one’s story is enlarged so as to include unantici-
pated events, inexplicable happenings, or contradictory perspectives. Furthermore,
the cultural and familial narratives in which our lives are embedded come to our
awareness at times of change and conflict. “It is during such phases of exceptional-
ity or rupture that the implicit narratives by which people regulate their lives can
become explicit” (Irwin, 1996, p. 113). This is the narrative version of the disorient-
ing dilemma or the cognitive dissonance that triggers learning; the inclination to
step outside of one’s habitual meanings is stimulated by a breach of coherence in
the life narrative.
According to the narrative orientation, then, we can appreciate that transforma-
tive learning involves a restorying process on the part of the learner. Randall (1996)
has described the role of the educator in this restorying process as fourfold. First,
the educator is a character in the learner’s story. Second, we are what Randall calls
the “keepers” of the learner’s story, by which he means that we provide a safe envi-
ronment in which learners can tell their story; we receive the story. Third, the educa-
tor or learning helper can function as an editor and critic, helping the learner to
question what kind of story she or he is telling and to identify the assumptions that
are driving it. And finally, the educator can assist as a coauthor with learners as they
fashion a revised self-narrative that is more inclusive of the realities of their lives.
Perhaps the most critical aspect of the educator’s role in attending the learning
process is to acknowledge and respect the individuality of the learners’ stories.
Once again, this perspective moves us away from categorizing learners according
to developmental stages and keeps our focus on the individual’s life narrative. And
so, we return to Courtenay’s (1994) question: How do we facilitate learning for 15
different people with different developmental narratives? The resolution that the
narrative orientation would seem to suggest is to rely on the learner’s ability, both
capability and responsibility, in this process rather than to assume that the instruc-
tion must be custom designed for each person.
This suggests the second main point to be made in this discussion: Autobio-
graphical learning activities are integral to significant adult learning. When we
understand that adult development is experienced and expressed through the con-
struction of the life narrative, we can appreciate the importance of the telling of the
self-stories that make up that life narrative. Indeed, according to some narrative
psychologists, the review and retelling of the life narrative actually fosters develop-
ment (e.g., Hermans, 1997; Randall, 1996; Viney, 1993). The idea is that the
process of telling one’s story externalizes it so that one can reflect on it, become
aware of its trajectory and the themes within it, and make choices about how one
wishes to continue. Thus, learning activities in which learners are encouraged to
draw autobiographical connections, to work with their own stories, and to reflect on
alternative plots for their lives are key to education that is responsive to individual
 Rossiter / A NARRATIVE APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT 69

developmental trajectories. Attention to the life experience of the learner is not a

novel idea—indeed, that is a part of the canon of adult education. What merits con-
sideration here are the profoundly empowering implications of understanding adult
learning as a restorying process—the connection between the authorship of one’s
story and claiming authority for one’s life.
Third, a narrative orientation leads us to understand that we are implicated in a
mutual, relational teaching/learning process. Central to the act of narrative interpre-
tation is the notion that making meaning of a story is a deeply and inherently rela-
tional process. That is, when we interpret the meaning of a story, we enter into rela-
tionship with the characters and/or the teller of the story; we engage with the
narrative both at the level of action and at the level of intent (Bruner, 1986). The
constructed meaning represents both what the story offers and what we bring to it.
In the context of adult education, we participate in meaning construction in rela-
tionship with the learners. This suggests that as educators, we might understand
development inductively, from learners’ stories of development, rather than chiefly
through developmental theories that we bring to the learning or research encounter.
More important, it suggests the fundamental mutuality of the meaning making
process: As we enter into and participate in the meaning of learners’stories, so, too,
are our own developmental narratives revealed and created in the process.

Narrative receptivity. Finally, the idea of development as story calls us into a

particular sort of narrative receptivity toward the life stories, and the lives, of learn-
ers. It is a process of coming to understand, in which the emphasis is on listening
and receiving rather than on analysis, explanation, or categorization. Consider for a
moment that we generally are accustomed to bracketing our disbelief and prejudg-
ments during the course of any story. When we watch a movie, read a novel, or listen
to a storyteller, we wait with some patience for the story to unfold. According to
Leitch (1989), the skills required of an “engaged audience” include the willingness
to remain engaged (even if the first 5 minutes of the story do not make sense) and to
make connections among the clues presented. In a similar vein, although speaking
of a clinical therapeutic setting, Berger (1989) discusses the novel as metaphor for
the patient’s life. The therapist, as reader, suspends judgment and bears with the
patient in “hopeful puzzlement” as her or his story is told. As adult educators, when
we understand development as the unfolding of the life story, we can assume the
role of engaged audience member as we come to know learners. We need not hasten
to assess the developmental stage or phase of our learners, but rather, we can listen,
receive, and wait in hopeful puzzlement for the story of each learner to make sense.

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