One Story Map Does Not Fit All: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Children's Written Story Retellings

AbstractNarrative is acknowledged to be a primary means by which children develop the voice of their own culture. In recent years, and as a result of the increased interest in story grammar research, retellings have also become a useful tool for assessing children's understanding of stories and teaching comprehension. The assumption across most previous studies is that narrative, especially folktales, provides the same story-schema support, no matter what the culture of the child may be. This cross-cultural study examines the relative effects of literacy and culture on the narrative form of written story retellings. Empirical findings confirm the hypothesis that two disparate populations, otherwise equated for levels of literacy, western-style schooling, and cognitive development, differ significantly in the structural components of their written story retellings. The story grammar of Mandler and Johnson (1977) was evaluated for discrimina-tory power. Categorizations of specific components of the story grammar showed qualitative differences from culture to culture. Results support culture-specific theories of story schema. (Sociolinguistics, Education)