Abstract
In this article we investigate how the content of children’s stories can provide insight into their cultural contexts. Informed by sociocultural theory, we use children’s narrative as a methodological tool for understanding the role of cultural influences in their construction of personal experiences and imaginary events. Twelve children in a year one class (five–six years) participated in pairs in three storytelling activities designed to draw on both imaginary scenarios and real world experiences. First, a picture was used as a stimulus and children were asked to formulate a story about what was happening in the image. Second, children were read the first part of a story book, and then asked to explain how they thought the story would finish. Finally, children were asked to recount an experience about a holiday they had been on. Thematic analysis of the stories illustrated how children utilized meditational tools to construct their narratives. Children’s imaginary capabilities were closely entwined with their own personal experiences and developmental context and they drew on beliefs and practices that were culturally situated. As a result we suggest that incorporating storytelling activities into early years classrooms can enable educators to develop a closer understanding of pupils’ cultural development, and provide researchers with a valuable methodological resource for studying sociocultural perspectives.
Introduction
Children tell stories from the early stages of their language development (St. Amour, 2003; Paley, 1990) and often demonstrate intense creativity and skill in the narratives they produce (Miller and Mehler, 1994). Defined as a form of ‘decontextualized discourse’, storytelling involves the narrator drawing on memory and imagination to talk about the past, future or abstracted information separated from current settings (Curenton et al., 2008). Consequently, it has been suggested that storytelling activities can promote children’s learning, understanding and development in a variety of domains (Collins, 1999; Miller and Pennycuff, 2008).
Owing to the range of experiences that children draw on when constructing their own stories, it has been argued that examination of their narratives can give insight into their social and cultural contexts (Collins, 1999; Davis, 2007; Dyson and Genishi, 1994). Viewing children’s stories as artefacts of their contextual experience in this way draws on sociocultural perspectives, where individual development is closely entwined with social and cultural influences. This theoretical standpoint originates from Vygotsky (1978) who emphasized the importance of culture in development. His perspective situated children’s development in a social environment, where learned practices are seen to exist within historical and cultural contexts. Individual communities have varying backgrounds and historical traditions, with specific assumptions and practices. Through social interaction with more experienced others, and participation in social institutions such as school, details of cultural rules and conventions are transmitted and rehearsed (Tudge and Rogoff, 1999). Children learn about what beliefs and ways of behaving are valued, and under what circumstances. What is usual and accepted in one culture may be problematic in another; hence development is regarded as culturally-specific rather than universal (Rogoff and Morelli, 1989). This mutual interdependence between individual development and the contextual influences of social, cultural and institutional factors is referred to as mediation (Daniels, 2005; O’Toole and de Abreu, 2005). Through the use of representations or ‘mediational tools’, individuals formulate their behaviours and understandings by drawing on the values and belief systems of their community (O’Toole and de Abreu, 2005). From this perspective, children’s thought processes and actions are therefore products of their sociocultural milieu.
These theoretical ideas can be usefully applied to storytelling. When children formulate a story, they will utilize the resources they have acquired through direct instruction, events they have personally experienced, communication they have had with others, and environmental stimulation. Young children are likely to be exposed to a range of storytelling encounters at home and in school (Rogoff, 2003). They will hear family members telling stories about past, present and future events in their lives, and they will listen to stories from books and other media. Such exposure will provide children with important clues about the ways that stories are formulated, their appropriate style and content and when they should be told (Engel, 1995; Fox, 1993). Clues or ‘signs’ represent culturally transmitted messages received by individuals during their development as to expected and valued beliefs and practices (Valsiner, 2000). Such experiences and observations enable the development of cultural repertoires, whereby individuals learn ways of participating and responding to narrative situations in culturally appropriate ways (Gutiérrez and Rogoff, 2003). Through internalizing these practices, rehearsing them and recreating them, children’s stories will reflect those that are culturally valued – facilitating their cultural membership (Engel, 1995). The stories they produce will consequently be products of their personal, social and cultural contexts. These influences are inherently entwined (Rogoff, 2008) therefore when we consider children’s narratives, their ability to create story and the content of the stories they tell should be viewed as intrinsically linked to their sociocultural environments.
A large proportion of the research on storytelling has been orientated towards the skills children use to formulate a coherent narrative and how these processes become increasingly sophisticated over time. This focus reflects a constructivist framework, linked to Piagetian ideas, where children’s learning consists of an individual venture of knowledge construction (Edwards, 2005). For example, telling a story involves children organizing events into a chronological sequence to present a coherent account that maintains the interest and attention of their audience (Miller and Pennycuff, 2008; Riley and Burrell, 2007). This process of structuring information can facilitate children’s recall for events and promote personal reflection about experiences (Collins, 1999; Engel, 1995). Therefore, as children learn to produce eloquent narratives, they enhance their social, cognitive and reflective skills.
We argue that focussing primarily on individual narrative skill development neglects the contextual information more readily provided by sociocultural perspectives. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that investigating how children develop ‘narrative competence’ (Baldock, 2006) in this respect formed the initial focus of our research with storytelling, and the data presented in this article is taken from a study designed for that original purpose. However, our point of emphasis changed during the course of the research as we became aware of interesting trends in the way children were responding to the narrative stimuli we provided. As a result, our analysis and interpretation of the data took a different direction, moving away from the development of storytelling skill, to a more detailed exploration of the meanings represented by the stories children produced. Our focus for this article therefore is examining the influence of culture on children’s responses to story activities, and exploring the cultural practises represented in their narratives. Our orientation towards a sociocultural perspective does not dismiss research on storytelling skill – rather serves to emphasize the additional insights gained from exploring children’s narratives as a form of epistemological enquiry where the symbolic content of the stories children tell are interpreted in addition to the structures and processes they use to construct them (Nicolopoulou et al., 1994).
There have been moves to incorporate sociocultural perspectives into the pedagogical theory and practices of early years education (Edwards, 2003; Fleer, 2002). Schools as educational institutions are entrenched with ‘taken-for-granted practices’ (Fleer, 2002: 117) which direct actions, styles of communication and beliefs – hence a closer consideration of the way children’s learning and knowledge is constructed within such cultural and social domains could offer a beneficial epistemological ‘shift’ in educational thinking. Storytelling might provide a useful opportunity to explore these issues by acting as a cultural tool through which children can express how they make sense of their world.
Through a recognition of the possibilities that storytelling might offer in a variety of areas, this study aims to explore what can be learnt about children’s development through analysing the content of their narratives. Specifically, through adopting a sociocultural perspective, we seek to investigate how the narratives produced by children in early years settings are mediated by their cultural experience. In so doing, we hope to provide further evidence for the reproductive cultural process of storytelling in both classroom and research environments.
Method
The study employed a qualitative design, utilizing three adult-led storytelling activities as a method for generating data from children. The research was conducted in the naturalistic setting of an early years classroom, although an element of researcher control was employed in order to manipulate the environment and create narrative stimuli (Ely et al., 2000). The research design and data collected for this article formed part of a study originally conceived to investigate the development of narrative skill in early years settings and our methodological choices are therefore reflective of this initial aim.
Participants
Twelve year one pupils (six boys and six girls, aged five–six years) from a city-based infant primary school in England participated in the study. The school choice was opportunistic via professional contacts of the first author. At the time of data collection, the school was a large mixed school catering for pupils aged two to seven years. Nearly all of the pupils came from a variety of minority ethnic backgrounds, the largest group being Indian. Islamic and Hindu religions dominated as the most common faith amongst pupils. The number of pupils eligible for a free school meal was above average and the majority of pupils came from homes where English was a second or third language.
Storytelling activities
Three storytelling activities were designed to cater for different types of narrative situations (both imaginative and real life events). We wanted simple techniques that would stimulate children to create stories; enable diaolgue between the children and researcher; be easily recreated in educational contexts; and be appropriate for the age of the children. All activities were conducted in English. The story frames we chose were westernized and the characters portrayed in the stimulus materials were white. These choices are reflective of our original research focus on narrative skill where specific cultural investigation was not an initial aim. However, the chosen stimuli were taken from resources available in the school, hence they reflected material that children were already exposed to in their daily educational experience.
Picture activity
Children were shown a picture and asked to create a story about what was happening in the image. This activity was chosen because of the known potential of illustrations as both a stimulus for storytelling and a support for it (Collins, 1999). We chose to show children an individual picture rather than a series of pictures to give them maximum flexibility in designing their storyline.
The colourful drawing showed a young boy and girl running towards large gates. The inclusion of children in the picture was deliberate in the hope that our participants would feel affinity with the characters, and thus construct a story more easily. The gates in the picture were brightly illuminated and partly open. The gateway was surrounded by a grand ornate frame, with unusual carving detail showing a series of mystical faces and creatures. The boy and girl characters were wearing pyjamas and a long nightdress (respectively).
The children were asked to look at the illustration and then asked questions about what they thought was happening in the picture in order to draw on their imaginative capabilities. Prompts and follow-up questions were used to encourage further detail of their thoughts (e.g. What do you think is happening? What do you think is behind the gates?).
Story stem activity
Story completion tasks or ‘story stem techniques’ involve children being read the first part of a story (whether it be a scenario constructed to elicit stories on a specific topic or using an existing story book) and then being asked to finish the story by saying what they think will happen next. Giving children a template in this way provides them with an element of scaffolding for their storytelling (Collins, 1999). Story stems have been used extensively in child mental health research given their potential to access children’s personal thoughts, feelings and experiences (Bettmann and Lundahl, 2007), but they can also be useful as a general tool for eliciting narratives (Ely et al., 2000).
We used a book rather than creating our own story as we wanted to utilize resources already available to eductors in classrooms. We chose The Secret Cave (by Richard Hamilton, illustrated by Helen Lanzerin, 2006) because it was suitable for the age of the children; it featured a young child as the main character; it had visually appealing pictures to engage the children; and it followed a suitable plot for children to create their own ending. We also do not believe that any of the children were familiar with this story prior to the study.
The children were read the first half of the story which involved a character called Johnny who was walking along a cliff with his father. They walked down to a beach and discovered a hidden cave. The researcher stopped reading at this point and asked the children what they thought happened next. Questions were used to promote discussion (e.g. What do you think will happen next? What is in the cave?).
Personal stories
For the final activity, we used a direct elicitation technique where children were asked to tell a story about an event in their lives (Ely et al., 2000). They were asked to tell the researcher about a time when they went on a holiday. This activity was chosen as it would involve narrative freedom, little direct intervention and also draw on personal experience rather than on imagination as in the previous activities. Also, given that children are likely to be often asked to recount experiences they have had and may frequently hear other people tell stories about things that have happened to them, we felt this task would offer a degree of familiarity for the children.
Procedure
Consent was gained from the school, teacher and children’s parents. The first author worked in the school prior to the study to ensure the children were familiar with her. She was also a member of the same ethnic group as many of the pupils in the school, positioning her as a cultural insider. All of the activities took place in a play house in the classroom which was deliberately chosen to be a comfortable environment. Children went to the house in pairs so that they would be at ease and could support each other’s answers as a form of ‘collective story creation’ (Baldock, 2006: 95). Also, this age group of children are known to particularly enjoy performing stories in front of each other (Wright et al., 2008) so we felt this situation might improve their motivation and engagement with the tasks. In each of the activities, the researcher asked questions and used continuation prompts to facilitate the development of children’s stories and encourage further detail (Wright et al., 2008). The tone was deliberately friendly to show that we were interested in what they had to say. Children’s narratives were audio recorded and subsequently transcribed.
Analytical steps
Transcriptions of the children’s narratives were analysed thematically (Braun and Clarke, 2006) informed by sociocultural theory. Our analysis concentrated on examining the content of the storylines formulated and what they revealed about children’s cultural context. Transcripts were read thoroughly and notes were made in the margins. Data were then coded by assigning labels to sections of text that represented the interpreted meaning of the extract. Preliminary codes were examined for patterns, categorized into groups and then labelled as sub-themes. By exploring relationships between sub-themes, two high level themes were identified.
Analysis
Thematic analysis identified two high level themes: cultural belief systems and practices and reality versus fantasy. The structure of these themes in relation to their constituent themes is shown in Figure 1. These two main themes will be discussed in turn. Extracts from the transcripts have been tidied to conform to written presentation (i.e. punctuation) and aid clearer reading of the data. Pseudonyms are used to protect the children’s identities. The data being presented run across the three story tasks (picture task, story stem activity and personal stories).
Thematic map showing main themes with constituent sub-themes
Cultural belief systems and practices
Sociocultural theory examines how people are exposed to explicit and implicit cultural messages from their host community which guide beliefs and practices (Valsiner, 2000). In this theme, our interpretation of the data centred on how the children used representations of cultural practices to formulate their storylines. Personal perspectives were formed or ‘mediated’ by their host culture, with children drawing on shared cultural practices as mediational tools to construct meaning in their stories. The cultural practices they had been exposed to served as reference points for them to form the plot and storylines. For example, in this first extract, Noor and Karim are looking at the image in the picture activity and talking about what they think might be behind the gates:
What would you see?
Grass and flowers and trees, apple trees
Grass! (both start to shout suggestions together)
Apple trees! Would you eat the apples from the apple trees?
Yeah!
No we have to
First we have to wash it
You wash it then you eat it
Oh is that how you eat it? You can’t just eat it off a tree can you?
No first you have to get the apple put into your bag and then when you go inside to wash it and then if you’re hungry you get one and eat it or you can put into your fruit bowl
Karim and Noor refer to the cultural practice of washing apples before eating, and also the storage of uneaten fruit in a fruit bowl. They have internalized normalized codes of conduct regarding the preparation and consumption of fruit, and these have guided their responses to the imaginary scenario. We might infer that the researcher’s question about whether they would eat the apple may have steered the direction of the story. Although meant as an open question, the children may have taken it as a test in which there was a correct response, causing them to refer to their internal representations about appropriate behaviour. Despite the fact that the researcher was not a teacher, her adult status increases the likelihood of a hierarchical relationship, where adults dominate and children try to please and impress (Punch, 2002). It is interesting to note Noor’s response to the researcher’s question, which she then changes as a result of Karim’s answer. Karim seems to remind her of what behaviour is acceptable in this situation and their resulting narrative is reflective of a negotiated account drawing on shared cultural practices. References to ‘rules’ of behaviour like this were also apparent in the personal story Noor created about her holiday:
If you say something bad. . . it really comes back to life. . . it’s gonna come by you watch when you say bad things Allah will make it. . . come true.
Yeah you shouldn’t say bad things
That’s what my mum said
Here, Noor displays a strong sense of morality by attempting to explain the consequences of one’s actions. She draws on her belief system of knowing right from wrong and applies this to her story. Her reference to Allah (Muslim God) in this passage illustrates how her moral reasoning is grounded in the context of a religious upbringing – creating relationships between her sense of self and her social and cultural surroundings. We recognize that the researcher’s response here appears directive. Agreeing with Noor validates her moral position and implies approval for the story content. In this respect, their shared religious beliefs seem to have framed the development of the story. Noor’s subsequent comment about what her mother has told her illustrates how her moral beliefs have been transmitted through family interactions. Children frequently integrated references to family into their stories. There was evidence of predominant societal representations of a child’s role in relation to their parents, and the structure and purpose of the family unit. In the following extract taken from the picture activity, Ramin and Imad talk about what they think is happening:
Ok so what are these two doing?
They running!
Oh they are running!
Yeah for their mum and dad!
Oh! For their mum and dad?
Yeah cause their mum and dad told them to not go anywhere
And they didn’t listen?
Yeah!
Ramin and Imad firstly noticed that the children portrayed in the picture were alone and not with their parents. They go on to suggest that the children were looking to be reunited with their parents, and that they had ‘broken the rules’ about going out unsupervised. We interpreted this as illustrating a belief in the dependency of children on adult guardianship. There is hierarchy in the family structure, with parents in charge and in a position to outline rules of behaviour and reprimand violations. Their response to the picture was therefore embedded in absent figures (i.e. the parents) as opposed to what was depicted in the image itself, showing how the stimulus was mediated by children’s cultural experience. Family structures and hierarchical relationships vary between cultural groups (Rogoff, 2003), and the ideas about the role of children in relation to expected levels of autonomy and parental influence demonstrated in Ramin and Imad’s story are reflective of European cultural meanings of attachment (Valsiner, 2000). Later on in his story, Imad suggests that the children’s father will rescue them and take them home. This notion of ‘father as protector’ is also displayed by Musa when he is completing the story stem activity. He suggests that after going in to the cave, Johnny finds a dragon and then runs to his father because he is afraid:
They’re gonna run away? Yeah that could happen.
. . . the boy will be scared and then. . . he. . . run to his dad and they gonna go back home.
Whilst we might be tempted to interpret Imad’s focus on the father as rescuing the characters in his story as reflecting ideologies of male dominance as ‘head of the family’, we are reluctant to infer this in Musa’s case given the inclusion of the son with his father as lead characters in the story stem provided. It is therefore possible that Musa’s story reflected the character information provided in the first part of the activity. However, in these examples we do see a recurring chronological sequence of a child character being in a predicament, followed by the parent (in these cases the father) saving or comforting the child and then taking them home. This sequence follows a familiar Western narrative structure of children’s fiction. Within the stories created, parents adopted a protective safeguarding role with direct responsibility for guardianship and home was referred to as a safe place where the child is out of harm’s way. This is exemplified in Rahma and Sonal’s story, also taken from the story stem activity:
So. . . he’s looked in this cave what do you think happens next?
He sees something
He sees something! And what does he what does he see?
er monster!
Monster! And what do what do Johnny and dad do?
They. . . cause their house is across the water they swim back. . . in their boat
. . . what do you think they do Sonal?
They run back to home
They run back to home? Why do they run back home?
They scared
Ohh cause they scared
Representing the home environment as a safe secure base in this manner and talking of parents assuming a nurturing role reflects the cultural importance placed on people’s dwelling place and specific cultural values and practices around parenting and family structures (Rogoff, 2003; Valsiner, 2000). Recognition of the cultural importance of particular lifestyles and practices was further illustrated by the way that several children focused on economic issues in their stories. The following extract is taken from the personal story task where Rahma is talking about a holiday she has been on:
What else did you do in Dubai?
We went shopping
Yeah. . .
We went Mcdonalds after. . . we gone to the beach we went. . . shopping and after shopping we went back home and watch a big TV and then my dad went and bought for me nail polish and lipstick and make up and took dress off and put new clothes and shoes and that’s it and everything
Rahma’s description of her holiday reflects a strong focus on purchasing and belongings. These aspects of her experience appear to be forefront in her mind, and it is these particular elements of her holiday which she chooses to share with her audience. The importance she places on consumer-related issues and the pride she seems to project as a result of owning certain products could be seen as evidence of materialism. In order for children to develop materialistic attitudes, they need to be aware of the ‘symbolic meanings’ of possessions and the worth attached to them (Chaplin and John, 2007). This involves appreciating the way in which society values property and the status which can be achieved from ownership. The meaning of money and assets are culturally mediated (Yamamoto and Takahashi, 2007), summarized by John (1999: 202) who argued that ‘our culture encourages children to focus on material goods as a means of achieving personal happiness, success, and self-fulfilment’. Evidence of material attitudes in children’s narratives therefore reflects the internalization of culturally defined ideologies about material possession. Closely linked to this was evidence of children using references to economic prosperity to imply positive qualities of individuals. Here Noor is considering the image in the picture activity:
What about the people in this picture who are these people?
Rich people
. . . what makes you think they’re rich people?
Because they got nice clothes and nice things and all that
Noor is associating ‘nice’ with wealth. Rather than this being a statement of fact, we argue it to be a socially mediated perspective where particular clothing is regarded as a signal of worth. Valsiner (2000) has described how emotive terms such as ‘nice’ are culturally constructed; an object or experience is only ‘nice’ because of the cultural meanings attached to its specific qualities.
When considering the meditational tools that children used as a resource to create their stories, we noticed that their expressed beliefs and practices operated at different levels, suggesting they situated themselves within different communities. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System (1979) represents the relationship children have with different aspect of their environment, and how these shape development. The model distinguishes between an individual’s ‘immediate settings and ‘‘larger’’ contexts’ (Rogoff, 2003: 45) – plotting the interactions individuals have in different cultural settings onto hierarchical levels. Within this perspective, people are seen to operate in and be influenced by various systems. From analysis of the stories, children positioned themselves within several of these settings. Their focus on the family and home environment reflected the microsystem – an individual’s local context. Religious groups and belief systems would operate at the next level of the mesosystem, whereas their reference to pervasive cultural ideologies such as materialism would be reflective of the largest system known as the macrosystem. Each of these systems have their own beliefs and practices – often termed ‘communities of practice’ – within which individuals acquire cultural knowledge and appropriate skills and ways of behaving (Erickson, 2002; Wenger, 1998). Therefore this theme demonstrates how children drew on beliefs and practices from the various communities within which they belonged – each operating on differing spheres of influence. The content of the stories served as a means by which children’s developing cultural identity was communicated.
Reality versus fantasy
Story creation involves narrators drawing on both real and imaginary experiences to create a unique account (Ahn and Filipenko, 2007) hence through stories children can manipulate, test and tease reality–fantasy boundaries. Children spend a lot of their time pretending, whether through physical play activities or imaginative fantasy, and this world of make-believe enables them to appreciate the boundaries of reality and move between them (Baldock, 2006). Throughout the narratives there was an interdependence that linked fantasy, play and reality in a continuous loop. Narrative play enables a child to create a psychological world consisting of ‘the real and the not real’ and explore the symbolic potential of language and its power to create possible and imaginary worlds (Engel, 2005: 514). This is demonstrated in the following extract where Musa was completing the story stem activity. He was able to jump from one idea to the next with ease. He started by discussing the possibility of a dinosaur in the cave:
Might be a dinosaur a baby dinosaur and dinosaurs gone for taking some food and then. . . when he come back he’s kill
He later progressed to monkeys having parties:
I think so some monkeys and having a parties
. . . you’d see monkeys having a party? What would they be having a party about?
Because I think so their sister is happy birthday they’re having a party. . . they made a tree and. . . they’re swinging
The disjointed nature of Musa’s story – shifting between different powerful scenes which appear unrelated – is common in boys’ narratives where their priorities tend to be orientated towards instilling excitement and drama rather than order and coherence (Nicolopoulou et al., 1994). Musa is constructing different imaginary worlds, and in doing so sparks the cognitive and imaginative capacities that are frequently expressed in children’s play. Narrative and play are closely woven together thus they can provide complementary functions in development (Nicolopoulou, 2005). Notably, in this extract Musa is merging fantasy (monkeys having parties) with a real-life possibility (having a birthday party). He explains the fantasy by drawing on the cultural tradition of celebrating birthdays, thus interweaving imagination with culturally grounded reality. The development of narrative language encourages, allows and promotes children to construct epistemological distinctions between imagination and reality; and once they have done this they can explore and traverse these worlds (Engel, 1995). This movement between imaginary and real-life scenarios was frequently seen in the narratives produced. A further example is in the following extract (taken from the story stem activity) where the children incorporated a game which they play at school into a fantasy situation:
What kind of games do you think dragon’s play?
They just play ahh!! Dragon’s games!
What kind of dragon games?
They breathe fire. . . the. . . dinosaur and the tigers follow them
. . .ooo what other kinds of games do they play? That sounds scary Ramin!
Yeah and their fire! And then er they get fake fire in his mouth and then he. . . spits it out and then. . . the brother he catches catch catch play is a bit different then catch catch
Imad and Ramin were able to invent a dinosaur game very similar to their experience of play. Catch-catch is a popular playground activity for children at this school and they produced a version where dragons also play catch-catch by throwing and catching fireballs using their mouths. The games which formed part of their peer playground culture were used as meditational tools in the construction of their imaginary story – illustrating how narrative production is tightly bound to their social context. Imad and Ramin were playing with fantasy and reality in close proximity, suggesting that in some cases children can make a clear distinction between these psychological worlds but consciously choose to merge them. When exploring fictitious realities in this way, children have the opportunity to experiment with ideas and test boundaries (Engel, 2005). Interestingly, in the following extract taken from the story stem activity we saw Arif and Musa experimenting with boundaries and debating the potential of an imaginary scenario:
What do you think’s gonna happen next?
The dragons gonna come out and say hello
He’s gonna say hello?
Dragon can’t say hello!
Arif did not question the existence of the dragon, but instead presented an argument about the capabilities that this mystical creature might possess. Children’s fiction often involves non-human figures displaying human capabilities (such as language), and Musa’s ‘speaking dragon’ might reflect his exposure to such stories within his cultural context. However, we could also infer that Musa’s construction of a speaking dragon involved two levels of fantasy; first, creating imaginary animals and then attributing language abilities to animals. Arif’s challenge about the second level implies an enforcement of ‘rules’ about the limits of the fantasy. Corsaro and Johannesen (2007) have noted that in fantasy play children often move between fantasy situations and reality in order to negotiate the rules for the play. The establishment of shared routines and practices between children creates a community of peer culture. Here, Musa and Arif seem to be debating the boundaries of fantasy and in doing so they began to create a shared cultural system for imaginary play.
The way that the children’s stories transitioned between fantasy and reality was further illustrated by the integration of personal experience into the scenarios they created. For example, in the imaginary activities where children were asked to create a narrative from a stimulus (either the story stem or picture), it was apparent that elements of their stories were based on events that had happened in their own lives. In this extract, Farrah was completing the picture activity:
Ok so where do you think this picture is?. . . Do you think it’s another world? Or another country?
Another country!
Another country? Which country do you think it is in?
India!
India? What makes you think it’s India?
Ummmm. . . some of the houses look like. . . Because the doors like white and beautiful
They have white and beautiful doors in India
I went India!
Did you?. . . What about you Farah? Have you been to India?
Yeah when we were small
So this picture reminds you of India!
Here Farrah noticed similarities in aspects of the picture with the ornate style of Indian design and had therefore used her experience of visiting India to create her narrative. When in India, we suggest she recognized the cultural diversity in the way humans construct physical space (Valsiner, 2000) – seeing differences in architecture to what she was familiar with in England. Farrah’s personal experience had thus been used as a representation to formulate an imaginary narrative.
It should be noted that although the two themes presented here had distinct characteristics, we regard them as interconnected. The imaginative powers children displayed and the way they integrated personal experiences and real-life scenarios with fantasy situations were embedded within their use of meditational tools. Children drew on social and cultural representations when creating their stories, illustrating how their imaginary capabilities are a reflection of beliefs and practices they have internalized through the context of their development.
Summary and implications
Analysis of the stories children produced revealed how they incorporated cultural beliefs and practices into their narratives, using them as meditational tools to create narratives. Their social and cultural context provided a framework for their imaginary capabilities, with the children drawing on resources from the different ‘cultures’ to which they belonged (such as family, peer group, religious group, etc.) – emphasizing how culture can be regarded as ‘integrated constellations of community practices’ (Rogoff and Angelillo, 2002: 212). Culture provided children both with material for the content of their stories and also with tools to shape the format of the narratives themselves. We therefore regard children’s psychological processes as having a ‘domain-specific’ nature whereby their functioning is interdependent with the contexts in which they develop (Rogoff and Morelli, 1989: 343).
What we find particularly interesting about these findings is the way the children interpreted the stimulus materials we used. We explained the fact that this study had not originally been designed to investigate cultural issues, and as a result of this the activities we adopted were all quite westernized and mainstream. Despite the fact that our methodology did not account for the culturally diverse sample we studied, children’s interpretations of stimulus materials were mediated by their own experiences. Our use of westernized story frames in this manner enabled insightful exploration of how a diverse group responded to and used these stimuli in ways that were culturally meaningful for them. This highlights the salience of cultural influences on the individual, with cultural practices serving as reference points for constructing meaning in new or unfamiliar situations.
Whilst the structured techniques we used to elicit stories from the children were specifically chosen due to their age appropriateness and suitability for stimulating discussion, similar approaches have been criticized by some for being too restrictive. As a result it is argued that they may not yield as comprehensive and sophisticated stories as might be obtained in a spontaneous free narrative situation (Nicolopoulou and Richner, 2007). We noted that some of the stories produced were relatively short and thin in detail, hence there is scope for experimenting with different elicitation techniques to provoke richer data (Davis, 2007). Additionally, we recognize the researcher’s role in structuring the children’s elicitations. The researcher’s presence in some of the dialogues via directive questions or reaffirming statements could have lead to the production of the socially framed ‘right’ answer. Acknowledging these issues, whilst balancing them against the valuable insights obtained, provides evidence for the potential of storytelling which future studies might explore further using a broader range of tools to facilitate narrative.
The fact that the first author (who worked with the children) was positioned within their ethnic community was important both for the data collection and analysis. Such shared community participation is likely to have facilitated the rapport that was established with the children, and could have been instrumental in the way they mediated the story stimuli into culturally meaningful ways. Likewise, sharing the analytical work between two researchers who were from different ethnic and religious communities enabled the data to be interpreted from multiple perspectives. However, the way the methodology was characterized by adult–child interaction to stimulate story also raises important considerations about the other cultural factors operating in the research situation (such as participation in adult–child cultures; scaffolding; age-related and peer cultures; cultures and practices associated with teacher–pupil relations and school traditions). Because of the complex nature of culture and the dynamic way it interacts in multiple contexts, it is not possible or desirable to attempt to control it as an isolated variable (Rogoff and Angelillo, 2002). Instead it seems important for researchers to reflect carefully on the cultural process operating in a research setting by analysing the context in which data are produced and collected.
We have demonstrated through this research how the construction and content of stories produced were positioned within the children’s participation in different cultural contexts. These findings offer several implications for educators in early years settings. First, in the foundation stage of learning, stories could present ideal stimuli for talking to children about their experiences. Teachers and fellow classmates could learn a lot about pupils by listening to the content of their stories. In increasingly diverse pupil groups, encouraging children to share stories about personal experiences and fantasy scenarios in a classroom context may help to facilitate discussions and subsequent teachings about cultural diversity (St. Amour, 2003; Dyson and Genishi, 1994). Recognition of the way that children’s knowledge and experience is constructed through cultural participation and meditational tools provides a means to incorporate sociocultural perspectives into teaching and learning activities (Fleer, 2002). Additionally, because telling stories requires children to speak more extensively for prolonged periods compared to normal conversation (Riley and Burrell, 2007), engaging them in complex discussions about their personal experiences, opinions and imagination can provide cognitive challenge and educational stimulation (Massey, 2004). Thus, storytelling has the potential to offer social, personal and educational advantages and we argue that teachers have much to gain from using storytelling more extensively in curriculum work and educational practice. We suggest therefore that storytelling is incorporated into in-service training to ensure that practitioners receive support and guidance on how to integrate these activities effectively.
Our study also contributes to the growing evidence for the potential of storytelling as a meaningful research tool for examining children’s experience (Davis, 1998, 2007). With the increasing recognition of the valuable role that children can play in research, there is a need for suitable methodologies which engage more closely in partnership with them to give power to their voice, treat them as experts in their own right and gain insight into their world (e.g. Grover, 2004; Morrow and Richards, 1996; Tisdall et al., 2009). Although we recognize the researchers’ active role in constructing and interpreting the children’s dialogues in our study, we feel that, with further work, storytelling has much to offer in this respect. Our research shows storytelling to be an effective and revealing method of collecting data from children, positioning their narratives as ‘a dynamic meeting space between children’s inner lives. . . and their external world’ (Ahn and Filipenko, 2007: 287). It is therefore unsurprising that storytelling offers exciting opportunities for further academic exploration.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Michaela Borg, Sarah Crafter and the two anonymous reviewers for their encouraging and constructive comments on earlier versions of this article.