'Forbidden Narratives': Exploring the Use of Student Narratives of Self in a Graduate Sport Sociology Course

This essay highlights three graduate student papers in an effort to explore the use of a relatively new methodology in the social sciences known as narratives of self. The seminar, in which the student papers were written, was formulated on the tenets of critical pedagogy and cultural studies. This paper positions the use of narratives of self within the frameworks of both fields of inquiry. The story-like qualities of the narratives encourage students to creatively conceptualize links between their own experiences in and around sport with the theoretical positions articulated in the seminar's readings and discussions. The larger aim of such a process is that the complexities of social relations are better understood, both by the writer of the essay and those who read the narrative.