This study explores how a group of women recently released from prison as parolees attempt to sustain their exit from deviant careers by constructing replacement selves. To examine this process, I analyze semi‐structured interviews with female ex‐offenders and show how they draw on work as a hook for change (Giordano et al. 2002) in their unfolding identity work. Contrary to traditional gendered scripts, these women view themselves as active participants in the world of work. Upon release not only do they desire to work to meet financial needs, but they also use employment as an avenue through which they begin to construct pro‐social replacement selves. Drawing on longitudinal qualitative data, I point out that as time on the outside passed, many of the women continued to use work as a way to fashion new conventional selves despite their experiences with low‐quality working conditions. I also provide evidence, however, that when women experience significant employment instability, they are unable to sustain their hopeful identity project and, instead, reengage their past deviant selves.

This article uses in-depth interviews to examine the identity work of forty-three women newly released from prison who live in their communities under the supervision of parole. Drawing on hegemonic cultural characters and storylines, the women utilize three narrative strategies that provide them with an opportunity to confront their stigmatized identity and recast their past, present, and future selves on their own terms. By resisting the stigma associated with a felon identity, disassociating from their past drug- and alcohol-using selves, and identifying as good mothers, the women refashion and reaffirm their identities by aligning with conventionality.

We used a multiple-case study to investigate participants' experiences in interviews from six qualitative studies that differed in interview orientations, designs, methods, participants, and Downloaded from Limits of the paradigm-driven approach Roulston (2010b) makes clear that the paradigm-driven approach to qualitative interviews, while helping researchers 'be better prepared to design research projects to use

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