In this two-day workshop, we will focus on three Personal Experience Narratives of healthcare professionals who hold leadership positions in the UK NHS. These will elucidate Riessman's dialogic thematic approach to narrative analysis while also illustrating different theoretical and analytic positions in narrative analysis, e.g., Labov’s structural and functional approach, and Frank’s dialogic approach. The narratives are situated in the contexts of wider societal discourses and reports of disparities in midwifery care for Black women and babies and inequalities in the career progression of Black healthcare professionals.  The narratives point to inherent problems of exclusion and discrimination that arise from how particular social groups are perceived, and which impact the professionals’ leadership journeys and are also scrutinised through the lens of leadership theories relevant to healthcare practice, i.e., ‘trait’ theory, and more contemporary compassionate and inclusive leadership theories.

Content of the workshop

Day 1: Theory and Methods

• Definitions, theoretical, epistemological, and historical influences relating to narrative inquiry/narrative analysis.
• Methods for doing narrative analysis including, collecting, selecting, and analysing stories

Day 2: Contextualisation and Groupwork analysing examples of personal experience narratives

•  Midwifery leadership in the UK NHS
• Gender and leadership in the UK NHS 
• Ethnicity and leadership
• Worked examples

Learning outcomes

Participants will be able to:

1. Discuss key issues theoretical and analytic approaches to narrative analysis

2. Analyse a story unit using Reissman’s thematic approach and discuss this approach alongside other analytic approaches.

3. Situate the interpretations of participants and analysts in contextualising discourses and literature.