Abstract The Storying School: an ongoing ethnography of a Catholic secondary College, developing a 'Writer-in-Residence' role to collect and create biographical stories which embody the history and culture of the school. The paper discusses the processes of developing a range of biographies and seeks to identify overarching themes within the various personal tales. Set against the context of the range of Northern Ireland Peace Initiatives and in a journalistic climate of disturbing reports in local newspapers including reactions to explicit racism, The Storying School tells both positive and harrowing personal tales of the lives of young people and adults associated with the school. The paper identifies the ethical and moral issues which arise from the development and dissemination of the project and discusses methodological issues of the research process and 'analysis' of 'voice' in report. Introduction The paper begins with an overview of the social and educational context of Northern Ireland and a brief synopsis of schooling during The Troubles. In this opening section various policy contexts are identified and explained as are the current happenings in the local area of the School. Newspaper accounts of events involving teenage suicide and racist attacks also form a vivid backdrop (and very real climate) to the life of the school.Methodology and Analysis This section of the paper grapples with methodological issues which arose during the project - some anticipated and others not. It identifies fundamental ethical issues and argues how the involvement of participants in their resolution was key to the study. Other methodological issues centre around issues of ownership, voice, power, and the attributation of meaning to the stories told. This section discusses the dilemma of the author in moving from the stories of individuals to 'analysis' of those stories and exposes the dilemma of treating stories (in themselves an finished and complete 'product') as data to be analysed. A key issue too, is the real danger that some participants felt in 'exposing' the stories from their lives in this way. This concern to protect participants is discussed and strategies for anonymity and the use of 'symbolic eqivilants' (Yalom 1993) and of fictionalising parts of the stories (Clough 2002) are also discussed. The Stories Central to this paper is a series of stories: some told to the author of this paper and others written by the participants.The paper presents a weave of six such stories - providing glimpses in to the lives of those who work with/in and around the school. Extracts from the following stories will be performed - either by the presenter or via audio/video recordings by the research participantsThe caretakers tale The cleaners tale The head teachers' tale The cook's tale The Maths teachers' tale A mothers' tale Together, the stories and the poetry show what really drives (or hinders) the lives and work of those so associated with the school and the power of personal stories in the development of schooling. Interpretation Having established earlier in the paper the difficulty of 'analysing' the stories of people's lives this paper attempts to take the stories as data and identifies several powerful themes this pervade the lives of participants and which are present throughout the biographies. Extracts from the life stories and poems will be used to illustrate the following themesReligion Difference Fear Morality Racism Sexuality Social justice Citizenship, 'belonging' and not belonging The presentation will feature a brief audio extract of the research participants in discussion with the researcher as they talk about one of the above themes, as it affects their lives in the school. When does 'Writer in Residence' become 'Ethnographic Research'? Having demonstrated the processes and narrative/poetic outcomes of the Storying School project. The paper will, more importantly, turn to the questions as to how such work can be claimed to be a form of ethnography - as opposed to Arts-Based learning.Issues of method, ethics, critique, evaluation and report will be addressed in this final and crucial section of the paper. This section too, will draw on ethnographic and biographical methodologies, to demonstrate the place of The Storying School in research - thus arguing - through method as well as medium, how 'writer in residence' in this project constituted - first and foremost - an ethnographic study. The paper concludes with a typology which can be used to gauge the research informed or research driven elements of learning through biography such that they can be claimed to contribute to research methodologies.Clough, P (2002) Narratives and fictions in Educational Research Buckingham: Open University Press Yalom J (1993) Loves' Executioner and other tales from psychotherapy London: PenguinInternatinoal Journal