Collaborators and Critics: The Nature and Effects of Peer Interaction on Children's Conversational Narratives

AbstractThis article examines the reactions of three young children to the narratives they spontaneously created and told to, and with, each other during daily 40-min drives to and from school. The data consist of 90 hr of recorded conversations spanning an 18-month period. The nature and effects of their comments to the narrator(s) are explored. The children are found to assume roles as both critics and as collaborators and to facilitate and support each other's efforts to create and tell a rich variety of narrative forms. Parallels with the role of adults in fostering narrative growth are noted. (Psychology qualitative, ethnographic analy-sis)