Young people’s voices on emotions: a narrative inquiry

Abstract

This article presents an innovative narrative inquiry study carried out in a primary school in Aotearoa New Zealand with three young people who provide insights into how they perceive, construct, give meaning to, and make sense of their own emotions. The analysis from this primary research draws on Foucauldian scholarship to examine how the narratives that young people construct about their feelings are shaped by dominant psy-discourses on emotions. We argue that through these discourses, certain voices of authority, knowledge, and ways of seeing are privileged in schools—while others are silenced—in order to label young people as emotionally or mentally “unwell” and in need of expert assistance. In doing so, we suggest that critical interdisciplinary work by health, psychology, counselling, and education professionals in schools can create spaces to explore inter-professional dialogue and reflexivity, as well as to challenge orthodox approaches to young people’s emotional lives.