- Title
- The hero's journey: stories of women returning to education
- Creator
- O'Shea, Sarah; Stone, Cathy
- Relation
- The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education Vol. 5, Issue 1, p. 79-91
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/intjfyhe.v5i1.186
- Publisher
- Queensland University of Technology
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2014
- Description
- This paper draws upon the metaphor of the "hero's journey" to further analyse seven stories of women returning to education. These stories have formed the basis of a recent book publication by the authors (Stone & O'Shea, 2012) and are derived from two complementary but separate research studies (O'Shea, 2007; Stone, 2008). None of the women featured in this article have a parent who went to university and all have a number of competing demands in their lives including families, partners and employment. This paper aims to both frame the richly descriptive nature of these stories within a heroic metaphor and also to indicate how these stories, whilst unique, share common thematic elements and turning points. The paper foregrounds these commonalities capturing a universal narrative and also explores how this mythical framework could be used by both educators and students to conceptualise movements within this environment.
- Subject
- hero's journey; stories; women; education
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1304890
- Identifier
- uon:20952
- Identifier
- ISSN:1838-2959
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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