Storytelling with cultural tools: children’s engagement with features of oral traditions in First Nations cultural education programs

• Main Author: Allen, James William
• Other Authors: Lalonde, Christopher
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Narrative Development; Culture and Development; Cognitive Development; Ethnopoetics; Oral Traditions; First Nations Cultures; Developmental Psychology; Cultural Psychology; Cultural Education; First Nations
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1828/4745

This dissertation presents a comparative case-study of how two groups of culturally diverse elementary school students engage with particular forms of narrative practice shared by cultural educators through First Nations cultural education programs. The project develops the argument that different cultures afford different symbolic resources useful in “structuring” and “organizing” experience for individuals and that one important way in which these “possible worlds” are shared in a community is through storytelling. To develop this argument the project was structured around two main research questions: 1) what are the forms and functions of narrative practices that children experience during the First Nations cultural education programs? And 2) how do children “echo” and “transform” these narrative practices through their participation in the narrative activities organized around the programs? Participants in the project were two First Nations cultural educators conducting cultural education programs in public schools who participated as research partners, as well as 16 students from a grade 1 classroom (Class A) who participated in the first educator’s program and 15 students from a grade 4 classroom (Class B) who participated in the second educator’s program. Data for this project came from a multiple sources and analysis focused especially on stories told from the cultural educators during their programs as well as retellings of these stories from students in the two classrooms. Additional data was included from interviews and discussions with the cultural educators and student participants, field notes on the cultural education programs, and the classroom communities, as well as discussions with classroom teachers. This additional data was integrated into the project at various points to support interpretations. An ethnopoetic or verse analysis (Hymes, 1981, 1996, 2003) of stories told by the cultural educators revealed recurring patterns in the stories that both educators employed for particular rhetorical ...