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NARRATIVE INQUIRY, 14(2), 347–367Copyright 2004, John Benjamins B.V., Amsterdam

AN EXPLORATORY STUDYOF MOTHER-CHILD STORYTELLING

IN EAST INDIA AND NORTHEASTUNITED STATES

Debra A. Harkins and Sukanya RaySuffolk University

This study examined cultural variations in parental goals of storytelling and storyconstructions to and with young children. Sixty-five (34 East India; 36 USA) moth-ers and their four-to-five year old children were audio taped as they read a non-worded picture storybook. East India mothers told longer stories that included moreevaluative comments and responses to their child’s questions than US mothers.Content and evaluation of character and story action reflected cultural themes ofcollectivism of India and individualism of USA. Enculturation through storytellingis discussed. (Mother-Child Storytelling, Individualism, Collectivism, Narrative)

In every culture, social institutions (e.g., family, school, peer group, me-dia, books, playtime) are involved in transmitting socio-cultural and moralvalues to young children. Recently, cross-cultural researchers have attemptedto explain the variation observed in socialization values by means of the the-oretical constructs of independence or individualism and interdependence orcollectivism (Bond & Hwang, 1986; Hofstede, 1980, 1983; Hui & Triandis,1986; Killen & Wainryb, 2000; Markus & Kitayama, 1991, 1994). This theo-retical orientation predicts that cultures with a more individualistic orientation(western societies) will emphasize individual achievement, personal growth,and the rights of the individual. While western families encourage their chil-dren to become physically and psychologically separated from their parents,self-reliant and independent at an early age (Rosenthal & Bornholt, 1988;

Requests for further information should be directed to Debra Harkins, 7 Kingman Road,Newton, MA 02461, USA. E-mail: [email protected]


348 DEBRA A. HARKINS AND SUKANYA RAY

Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986); collectivist cultures (eastern societies) stressa more tightly knit social framework with the rights and needs of the group asparamount (Hui & Triandis, 1986). This collectivist orientation includes anemphasis on cohesion and interdependence among family members, preser-vation of status quo, and profound loyalty to family (Argyle, 1986; Bond, &Hwang, 1986; Harrison, Serafica, & McAdoo, 1984; Kriger & Kroes, 1972).

Markus and Kitayama (1994, 1998) have explained these observed cul-tural variations using similar theoretical constructs identifying independentself-construal in Western (individualist) and interdependent self-construal inEastern (collectivist) cultures, respectively. From this orientation, Westerncultures represent the self as an entity with distinct attributes and detachedfrom social contexts whereas Eastern cultures often define the self in rela-tion to others and their surrounding context. Although there has been muchdiscussion about whether there is such a distinct ideological dichotomy (seeHarkness, Super, & Tijen, 2000 for review), recent research bears out thatthere are both individualistic (independence) and collectivistic (interdepen-dence) tendencies that are differentially emphasized across cultures as wellas within the subcultures that often exist within the larger culture (Harkness,Super, & Tijen, 2000; Harwood, Scholmerich, & Schulze, 2000; Harwood,Scholmerich, Ventura-Cook, Schulze, & Wilson, 1996; Killen & Sueyoshi,1995; Turiel & Wainryb, 1998; Wainyrb, 1995; Wainyrb & Turiel, 1994).

Family, school, media, community, religion and many other activities canserve as the social agents that strengthen these individualistic or collectivisticvalues. The idea that parents likely serve as one of the most pivotal socializingagents during a child’s development has been supported by recent research ofHarwood, Scholmerich, and Schulze (2000), where they found that parentsoften engage in child-rearing practices that reflect values consistent withtheir cultural group. Empirical evidence consistently finds that working classor less well-educated parents tend to place a higher value on obedienceand conformity (e.g., discouraging conversation) and middle-class or morehighly educated parents often value more self-initiative (e.g., encouragingconversation) (Bond, Belensky, Weinstock, & Cook, 1996; Bond, Belensky,Weinstock, & Monsey, 1992; Harkins, 1993; Harkness, Super, & Tijen, 2000;Hoff-Ginsberg & Tardif, 1995; Kohn, 1977). It is clear both intuitively andempirically that parents are centrally involved in child- rearing that promotescultural values.


MOTHER-CHILD STORYTELLING 349

Many researchers (Miller & Moore, 1989; Nicolopoulou, 1997; Polanyi,1985) have explored these cultural themes within adult and child narrativesand indeed found that storytelling often reflects the speaker’s social world.Both Bruner (1992) and Nicolopoulou have cogently emphasized that narra-tive activity needs to be understood as a linguistic and symbolic device thatconnects “the construction of reality with the formation of identity. . .” (Ni-colopoulou, 1997, p. 180). Storytelling then can be viewed as another waythat parents instill a personal and cultural identity to their children.

It is clear from research by Miller and her colleagues (Miller, 1982; Miller& Moore, 1989; Miller & Sperry, 1988; Miller, Wiley, Fung, & Liang, 1997)that the thematic content of personal storytelling is intimately connected tothe narrative structure of a child’s story. This is clearly seen when exploringparent-child storytelling, (Cho & Miller, 2004; McCabe, 1997; Oppenheim,Emde, & Wamboldt, 1996) where narrative construction both shapes as wellas reflects cultural aspects of self as told through the dyad’s story. This typeof narrative activity is not only an integral part of parent-child bonding, butis a powerful tool for transmission of culturally prescribed roles and valuesthat are passed from adult caregivers to young children.

Much of the research on parent-child storytelling indicates stylistic differ-ences in parental narratives to children that often is attributed to not onlyculture (Health & Thomas, 1984; McCabe, 1996, 1997; Michaels, 1991; Mi-nami & McCabe, 1995) but to the gender of child (Chance & Fiese, 1999;Fivush, 1998) and social class/education (Hansen, 1993; Heath, 1986; Hicks,1991; Killen & Wainryb, 2000; Pellegrini, Perlmutter, Galda, & Brody, 1991).Empirical research examining gender differences in mother-child narrativesreveals that mothers use more emotional words with their daughters thantheir sons (Gleason & Melzi, 1997). Similar research examining the influenceof education on mother-child storytelling reveals that more highly educatedmothers use reading time for relaxation and socialization whereas less well-educated mothers use reading time for school preparation (Harkins, 1993).The present study sought to further explore the role of culture, gender andeducation in the narratives of mother-child storytelling.

Studies on narratives have demonstrated that parent- child narratives servemany functions including transmitting cultural values (Minami & McCabe,1995), spirituality (Dancy & Wynn-Dancy, 1994), morality (Tappan & Brown,1989) as well as describing conflict resolution strategies (Duryea & Potts,1993). For example, research by McCabe and her colleagues (McCabe, 1996;



Minami & McCabe, 1991, 1995) have found differences in how Japanese andAmerican mothers elicit past event stories from their children that reflect theideological preferences of each of these cultures. They found that English-speaking mothers elicited more elaboration, evaluation and descriptions fromtheir children that reflect the American value of independence. In contrast,Japanese mothers “show more verbal attention” (using the verbal equivalentto Uh huh in English) that kept the child’s narrative turns concise and short.This attention elicitation pattern of Japanese mothers mirrors the Japanesevalue symbolized in the proverb “Still waters run deep.” (McCabe, 1997, p.162). These observed differences in how parents elicit stories demonstratesclearly how the values of a culture can be reflected in and structure the nar-rative process as well as how parents are intricately involved in the narrativeenculturation process of children.

Although there has been recent research on cultural differences in parent-child storytelling, much of this research has examined past event storiesor personal storytelling. These stories are often elicited through similar orthe same interview questions and it is likely that the choice of the pastevent or personal story to narrate varies as a function of culture. The presentstudy examined cultural differences in mother-child storytelling of a non-worded picture storybook to compare how the same thematic and pictorialmaterial might vary within individualistic (United States) and collectivistic(East India) cultures.

Narrative researchers have identified that stories have both structural/ref-erential (e.g., setting, problem or goal, obstacles toward achieving the goal,resolution) and evaluative composition (Labov, 1972; Labov & Waletsky,1967). The referential element is defined as the recounting of events in thetemporal sequence in which they are inferred to have occurred. However,the primary function of a narrative is not to simply report a temporal se-quence of events but rather to provide a perspective on actions and eventsthat create a comfortable pattern of themes selected from one’s own culturaltraditions. This evaluative element of a narrative provides meaning to ob-jects and events during story construction and is created through linguisticdevices, which signal the relationship amongst characters, objects and events.Questions may play an important evaluative role in adult-child storytellingincluding assessing a child’s understanding of the story, promoting child re-sponses that elicit story construction and evaluating of story events (McCabe,1997; McNamee, 1979).



Examination of some of these narrative elements, as well as the themesemphasized, may provide further empirical support for how parents trans-mit and strengthen cultural norms through narrative discourse. To explorethese issues, the present study compared families across Eastern and Westerncultures – East India and Northeast United States, respectively. East Indiawas chosen due to the second author’s familiarity with the cultural back-ground, her language skills and her access to these community resources.Specifically, the Indian mothers of this research are primarily from a Hindureligious orientation which stresses the values of compassion, respect for na-ture and all living creatures, family integrity and righteous performance orDharma of age related duties. Hinduism reflects the guidelines for leadinglives not necessarily through religious groups. The foundation comes fromVedic lineage that stresses unity of all living beings. The notion of self andsociety is contained in the Indian cultural notion of family and communityas a whole (Roland, 1986; Bacon, 1996) in contrast to the American focuson individual self. The Vedic description of the individual self describes theself as part of the larger universe with less rigid boundaries between self andothers. This Vedic view is expressed in the Indian heroic characters of films,novels, and folktales and a sense of we-ness that permeates Indian culture(Kakar, 1989; Roland, 1986).

First, it was expected that length of story, evaluative comments, reportedgoals of storytelling and questions and responses would vary as a func-tion of culture. More specifically, it was expected that children from theUS (Northeastern United States) would have more narrative phrases duringstorytelling than their Indian counterparts signifying the value of autonomyoften found in more individualistic cultures (Harkness, Super, & Tijen, 2000;Markus & Kitayama, 1998). In contrast, mothers from India were expectedto have a greater number of phrases than their US counterparts signifyingthe value of subordination and respect of elders often found in more interde-pendent or collectivist cultures (Killen & Wainryb, 2000; Raeff, Greenfield,& Quiroz, 2000).

A qualitative analysis of narrative evaluations of the resolution of thestory was examined for themes of independence and interdependence. Morespecifically, it was expected that mothers from India would evaluate thisstory based on themes related to interdependence such as family integrityand loyalty whereas mothers from the US would evaluate this story based on



themes related to individualism/independence such as individual goal attain-ment (Harkness, Super, & Tijen, 2000; Markus & Kitayama, 1998).

Also explored was whether mother’s educational level, gender of child,and mother’s goals of storytelling would be related to the use of evaluatives,length of story, questions and/or responses. It was expected that length ofstory would vary between same gender dyads and cross gender dyads (Ely,Gleason, & McCabe, 1996; Ely & McCabe, 1996). It was also expected thatmore highly educated mothers and their children would produce more narra-tive phrases, evaluative comments, and questions/responses compared to theirless well-educated counterparts (Greenfield, Quiroz, & Raeff, 2000; Harkness,Super, & Tijen, 2000; Harwood, Scholmerich, & Schulze, 2000). Lastly, itwas expected that mothers who reported that their goal of storytelling wassocialization and relaxation would have longer stories, more evaluative com-ments, and more questions/responses than mothers who reported their goalof storytelling as comprehension and school preparation (Harkins, 1993).

METHOD

Participants

Thirty-four urban Oriya speaking children (14 females; 15 males) and theirmothers from East India and 36 (19 females; 17 males) urban English-speaking children and their mothers from Northeastern US participated. Four-to-five year old children (India M = 4.8 yrs., SD = 4.7 months; US M = 4.9yrs., SD = 4.5 months) from two parent families were included. Sixteen Indianmothers with lower education (less than or equal to 16 years) and 18 withhigher education (more than or equal to 16 years) and 14 US mothers withlower education and 22 with higher education made up this sample. Indianfamilies were all Hindu upper caste and mothers were given the option of us-ing Oriya or English language during storytelling. All Indian mothers chosethe Oriya language and Indian tapes were transcribed by bilingual Oriya im-migrant professionals living in the US. Transcripts were then back translatedfor reliability. All participants indicated prior experience using storybookswith their children.



Material

The book “Frog, Where Are You?” by Mercer Mayer is a picture book thatcontains no words; thus, the narrator is forced to use his/her own words tocreate the story. Both the episodic structure (Bamberg, 1987) and goal struc-ture (Trabasso, Nickels, & Munger, 1989) of this book have been extensivelyanalyzed making it relatively easy to identify the story elements (setting, ini-tiating event, internal response, attempts, outcomes, and consequences). Ac-cording to the structural analysis of this picture storybook (Bamberg, 1987;Bamberg & Marchman, 1991; Trabasso, Nickels, & Munger, 1989) the majorepisode of this story is “searching for the frog.” The story begins with the“frog leaping away” and then proceeds through a number of obstacles as thechild and his dog search for the frog (e.g., dog falls out the window, boyis bitten by a gopher, chased by an owl and carried away by a deer). Theseobstacles appear during the story and interrupt attempts to obtain the goal(i.e., finding the frog).

Procedure

Participants were contacted through day care and community centers. Motherswere instructed to engage in storytelling and interact as naturally as possi-ble with their child using the non-worded picture storybook. A second visitincluded asking parents to indicate their goals and storytelling patterns, edu-cational level, etc. These storytellings occurred in the home and were audiotaped in the absence of the investigators. Although most parents reported thatthey rarely “read” wordless books, recorded sessions were not felt by parentsto be different from their usual worded storytelling sessions.

Measures

Maternal reported goals of storytelling. From a questionnaire, motherswere asked to rank their most important to least important goals of storytelling(comprehension, shared social time, preparation for school, reading readiness,or to enchant their child with books). Reported goals were collapsed intotwo categories for analysis with “comprehension, preparation for school andreading readiness” labeled as comprehension focused goals and “shared socialtime and enchant child with books” labeled as social goals. This measure is



an adapted version of research by Dickinson and Keebler (1989) on teacherstorytelling.

Length of story and evaluative comments. Length of story was defined asthe number of c-units per narrative for mother and child. “A c-unit is an inde-pendent clause along with any dependent clauses it contains” (Loban, 1976).The number of mother and child evaluatives (Bamberg & Damrad-Frye, 1991;Berman & Slobin, 1994) was defined as c-units that evaluated story eventsfrom the characters’ perspective. Evaluatives clauses included the following:a) references to character’s internal states (i.e., “He was happy.”); b) characterspeech (i.e., “and the boy said: You should be careful.”); and c) goal-relatedcharacter statements (i.e., “and they were calling for the frog.”). Evaluativeswere also examined from the narrator’s or listener’s perspective and definedas meta-cognitive comments (i.e., “What do you think the little boy is goingto do?”). These meta-cognitive comments refer to when the narrator steps outof the story and describes the situation from a second-order perspective orexplains why the overall story is told (Bamberg, 1997; Bamberg & Damrad-Frye, 1991; Berman & Slobin, 1994). Inter rater reliability was obtained forall measures and ranged from .80 to .95 with all disagreements discusseduntil consensus was reached.

Questions and responses. The mean proportion of questions and re-sponses by mother and child during storytelling were examined in relationto culture, gender, mothers’ education and reported goals of storytelling.

Cultural themes of the narrative. Exploratory analysis of cultural themeswere examined at mothers’ narrative evaluation of the resolution of the story“Frog, where are you?” as this section of the story includes the only episodein this “boy who searches for his frog” story where the frog “family” is pre-sented. Narratives were examined for presence of goal-oriented and familyfocused evaluative comments. The theme of individualism was defined asevaluative phrases focused on individual goal-fulfillment whereas the themeof collectivism was defined as evaluative phrases focused on interdepen-dence and loyalty to family (See Appendix A for excerpts of evaluativephrases for USA and Indian mothers). Inter-rater reliability for evaluativethemes was 100%.



Data analysis. Multivariate analyses were performed to examine pos-sible interactions between culture, gender, mothers’ education and goals ofstorytelling on the dependent measures of interest: length of story (numberof phrases); mean proportion of each type of evaluative comment (internalspeech, character speech, absent character, and meta-cognitive); and meanproportion of questions and responses. Mean proportion of questions was cal-culated by dividing the number of questions by the total number of phrases.Similar calculations occurred for mean proportion of each type of evalua-tive comment and responses to questions. No interactions were found forthe four independent variables so main effects for each independent variablewere further explored. Finally, a more qualitative analysis of cultural themeswas undertaken to explore mothers’ narrative evaluation of the resolution ofthe story.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

No significant interactions were found among the independent variables ofculture, gender, education or goals of storytelling for any of the dependentvariables examined including length of story; number and type of evaluativecomments; and number of questions and responses for mother and child.Additionally, no main effects were found for gender among narrative phrases,comments, questions or responses. The following analyses will address themain effects found for culture, education and goals of storytelling on mother-child narrative construction.

Culture

The first set of analyses involved examination of possible cultural differenceswithin mother-child narratives. Specifically examined were the number ofphrases and number and types of evaluative comments used. In addition,the number of questions and responses used by mothers and children wereexamined, respectively.

First, significant cultural differences were found in the mean number ofnarrative phrases used by mothers, F (1, 68) = 13.77, p < .001; and children,F (1, 68) = 5.88, p < .02 with the number of phrases by Indian mothershigher than the number by US mothers. In contrast, Indian children had fewer



TABLE 1Cultural differences in mother and child mean narrative phrases, mean proportion of

evaluative comments, questions and responses

Mother ChildUS India US India

Number of phrases 98.89 158.94*** 41.50 27.12**

Evaluative comment type+

Internal 6.13 11.60*** 2.58 4.82*Quoted speech 5.23 10.28** 3.35 2.98Absent character 14.38 15.80 8.57 5.84Meta-comments 13.67 18.92 6.57 14.77**

Questions+ 25.53 17.32 7.07 55.86***Responses+ 4.20 14.49 43.52 39.15*

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001+ = proportion of evaluatives, questions, or responses /total number of phrases

phrases than US children. As predicted, Indian child phrases accounted foronly 15% of the narrative whereas US child phrases accounted for 30% of thedyadic narrative. These results demonstrate that mothers were more verballyactive in Indian culture whereas US children had more opportunities to beverbally involved in the narrative (See Table 1).

Next, there were significant cultural differences in the mean proportion ofevaluative comments for mothers, F (4, 65) = 5.03, p < .01, and children, F

(4, 65) = 4.21, p < .01. Specifically, Indian mothers were more elaborativein internal speech and quoted speech than their US counterparts. Similarly,Indian children were more elaborative in internal speech and meta-cognitiveevaluative comments than their US counterparts.

Third, significant cultural differences were found in the mean proportion ofquestions, F (1, 68) = 48.17, p < .001, and responses, F (1, 68) = 4.71, p < .05,with Indian children asking more questions and US children providing moreresponses than their Indian counterparts. There were no significant culturaldifferences found for mothers’ questions or responses.

Qualitative analysis of predicted cultural differences in mothers’ narrativeinterpretation of the story provides further support for the self-construal the-ory of cultural values. That is, mother-child narratives from US and India doreflect the cultural values of independent and interdependent self-orientation,respectively. For example, the following is a typical description of US moth-



ers narrating the outcome of this story, “the boy takes a baby frog fromthe family, waves goodbye and everyone is happy.” Notice that this narra-tion focuses on the boy’s goal with little to no regard for the breakup ofthe baby frog from the family. In contrast, but in partial support of culturaltheory, Indian mothers narrated the outcome more often as “the boy takingthe baby froggy’s friend” X2(1) = 26.85, p < .001. This response seemsto avoid the breakup of the frog “family” by describing the final picture inthis non-worded book (i.e., the boy with a frog in his hand) as “the babyfroggy’s friend.” By narrating this event as a non-family member being takenby the boy, the narrator has eliminated the anxiety and negative evaluationsassociated with a family member (i.e., “baby frog”) being taken from thefamily – an event that would be perceived as quite disruptive to members ofa collective culture.

Evaluative responses to these outcomes also revealed significant culturaldifferences X2(1) = 47.81, p < .001. Amazingly, all US mothers describedthe resolution as a “happy ending” whereas Indian mothers were equivocalin their evaluation of the story. First, 41% of Indian mothers described theresolution as the “boy taking a baby froggy’s friend” and then evaluated theresolution as a “happy ending.” No US mother described the resolution as the“boy taking a baby froggy’s friend.” Next, 17% of Indian mothers describedthe resolution as the “boy taking a baby frog from the family” and thenevaluated the resolution as “a happy boy and a sad family” whereas 81% ofUS mothers described the resolution as the “boy taking the baby frog” andevaluated this as a happy ending.

Discussion of cultural differences

These findings revealed expected differences between Indian and US mothersand children in the number of phrases, evaluatives, questions and responsesused during storytelling. Indian mothers’ length of story was longer than theirUS counterparts, whereas a reverse trend was observed for children’s lengthof story. These results suggest that US children are twice as active duringstorytelling than Indian children. Indian mothers may be facilitating listeningskills with their children, and/or Indian children may perceive their mothersas a major informant. In contrast, US mothers may be allowing their childrenthe opportunity for individual expression, and/or US children are reflectingtheir personal freedom towards original thinking. Children’s questioning and



mothers’ response pattern further supports the former thesis that mothersserve as a major informant for East India children. These findings supportprevious research on cultural values present in individualistic and collectivistsocieties (Harkness, et. al., 2000; Hofstede, 1983; Hui & Triandis, 1986;Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988).

As Triandis et al. (1988) have reported, individualism includes puttinga high value on personal goals and this is clearly seen in the US mothersnarratives (with the narrative focus on the boy achieving his goal of findingthe frog) whereas collectivism pus a high value on hierarchy and harmonyand this was reflected in children’s more submissive stance (asking morequestions) to their mothers during the storytelling.

More revealing still were the differential themes reflected in the narrativeresolution and evaluation of the ending of the story. For example, US mothersnarrated the ending of the story as the boy losing and then finding his frog,taking the baby frog home with him leading to a happy ending, clearlyreflecting an individualistic emphasis of personal goals above ingroup goalsand the happiness that results when these personal goals are achieved. Incontrast, Indian mothers focused not only on the boy achieving his goal buton ensuring family integrity (by constructing a narrative that either identifiesthe lost frog as being a non-family member that was lost, found and takenby the boy leading to a happy ending or explaining the frog as a family frogmember who was lost, found and taken by the boy resulting in happiness forthe boy and sadness among family members).

Further differences supporting cultural themes of independence and in-terdependence were observed in the evaluation of the resolution of story(Harkness, et. al., 2000; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). These narrative evalu-ations may reflect the cultural dynamics of these two societies. It seems thatthe US narratives ended happily because both narrator and listener focusedon the character’s attainment of the boy’s goal rather than on the conse-quences (i.e., other’s feelings) of that attainment. In this case, evaluation ofthe goal appears to be independent of the social context in which that goal isachieved. In contrast, Indian narratives had mixed emotional endings high-lighting the context-dependent nature of goal attainment. Both of the culturalthemes found in this study reflect major priorities of each culture with inde-pendence and goal attainment as the overriding theme of US life and moralvalues and community as the emphasis of East India life.



Education

Recent research has suggested (Killen & Wainryb, 2000) that social classmay be as important as the cultural values of individualism and collectivismin promoting meanings and practices that influence the social developmentof children. To address this issue, education level was used as an indirectmeasure of social class. The following set of analyses included examina-tion of possible educational differences within the narrative construction ofmother-child stories. First, significant differences were found in the meannumber of phrases for mothers, F (1, 68) = 8.21, p < .01, and children,F (1, 68) = 18.77, p < .001. As expected, more highly-educated mothersand their children had more narrative phrases than their less well-educatedcounterparts and this was irrespective of culture (See Table 2).

Next, significant educational differences were observed in the mean pro-portion of evaluative comments for mothers, F (4, 65) = 6.05, p < .001, andchildren, F (4, 65) = 4.60, p < .01. Less well-educated mothers used morereferences to absent characters than their more highly-educated counterparts.However, children with more highly-educated mothers used more internalspeech, quoted-speech, absent character, and meta-cognitive evaluative com-ments than children with less well-educated mothers. No other educationaldifferences were observed for type of evaluative comments.

TABLE 2Educational differences in mother and child mean narrative phrases, mean proportion of

evaluative comments, questions and responses

Mother ChildLow High Low High

Number of phrases 100.33 148.85*** 20.83 44.78***


Internal 7.79 9.54 1.52 5.28***Quoted speech 10.02 5.93* 2.25 3.85Absent character 18.46 12.52** 5.44 8.60Meta-comments 14.94 17.18 8.05 12.42

Questions+ 12.11 28.61* 43.49 21.22*Responses+ 6.28 11.38 37.70 44.17




Third, significant educational differences were observed in the mean pro-portion of questions for mothers, F (1, 68) = 5.30, p < .05, and children,F (1, 68) = 6.29, p < .05. Both more highly educated mothers and their chil-dren asked more questions than their less well-educated counterparts. Nosignificant differences were observed in proportion of responses for motherand child by education.

Mother’s reported goal of storytelling

Prior research (Harkness, Super, & van Tijen, 2000) has demonstrated thatparent’s beliefs influence parenting behavior. These beliefs were expected toinfluence narrative style in this study (Harkins, 1993). The next set of analysesincluded examination of possible differences within the narrative constructionof mother-child stories according to mother’s reported goal of storytelling.First, significant differences in maternal reported goal of storytelling werefound in the mean number of phrases for mothers, F (1, 68) = 5.46, p < .05,and children, F (1, 68) = 17.19, p < .001. As expected, narrative phrases bymothers and their children were higher when mothers reported their goal ofstorytelling to be primarily for socialization or relaxation than for motherswith comprehension or school preparation as their primary goal-and thisfinding was irrespective of culture. Both mothers and their children weremore verbally active when mother perceived the storytelling session to be anopportunity for socialization or relaxation.

Next, significant differences in maternal reported goals of storytelling wereobserved in the mean proportion of evaluatives for mothers, F (4, 65) =4.69, p < .01, and children, F (4, 65) = 2.72, p < .05. Comprehension-focused mothers used more quoted speech and references to absent charactersthan their social-focused counterparts. Children with social-focused mothersused more references to internal state and absent character evaluatives thanchildren with comprehension-focused mothers (See Table 3).

Third, while significant differences in maternal reported goals of sto-rytelling were observed in the mean proportion of questions for mother,F (1, 68) = 7.17, p < .01, and child, F (1, 68) = 10.87, p < .01, no differenceswere observed in the responses to these questions for mother or child. Moth-ers with a social-focused goal of storytelling (e.g., to engage their child in themagic of books and a time for social relaxation) asked more questions dur-ing their narratives than mothers with a comprehension-focused goal (e.g.,



TABLE 3Differences in maternal goals of storytelling for mother and child mean narrative phrases,

mean proportion of evaluative comments, questions and responses

Mother ChildComprehension Social Comprehension SocialFocused Focused Focused Focused

Number of phrases 103.64 144.33 20.50 43.86****


Internal 8.91 8.71 2.03 4.76*Quoted speech 10.64 5.71* 2.58 3.56Absent character 18.94 12.49*** 5.37 8.49*Meta-comments 18.94 15.83 9.59 11.18

Questions+ 10.05 29.20* 47.99 19.28**Responses+ 7.19 10.54 36.91 44.39


to prepare their child for school and comprehension); conversely, childrenof mothers with a comprehension-focused goal asked more questions thanchildren of mothers with a social-focused goal.

Discussion of maternal education and goals of storytelling

The findings of this study support previous research (Harkins, 1993; Har-wood, Scholmerich, & Schulze, 2000; Killen & Wainryb, 2000) that mater-nal education level influences narrative structure and goals of parent-childstorytelling. Clearly, mothers’ educational level is an important parameter ofsocial class and impacted the goals and styles of storytelling in this study andthis finding was independent of culture. More highly educated mothers askedmore questions to their child and reported that their goal of storytelling wassocial relaxation; thereby, fostering values of taking initiative, self-directionand empowerment in their children. In contrast, less well-educated mothersgoals and styles of storytelling revealed their tendency toward conformityand obedience to authority. More research is needed to determine whethernational values or social class is the more powerful predictor of parent-childstorytelling.



CONCLUSIONS

While previous research (Harkins, 1993) has found interactions between ma-ternal education and goals of storytelling their absence within the presentstudy may simply be due to the small sample size across groups. In ad-dition, the findings regarding gender differences in parent-child storytellinghas been inconclusive (Alexander, Harkins, & Michel, 1994; Ely, Gleason, &McCabe, 1996; Ely & McCabe, 1996; Fivush, 1998; Reese & Fivush, 1993).The equivocal findings across these studies may result from the variabilityin type of narrative examined (e.g., past event, personal storytelling, picturebooks) and the selection of a given gender group of parent in the study. Alsoimportant to consider is that the narrative element being examined acrossthese studies varies considerably due to type of analysis chosen (e.g., storygrammar versus conversational analysis) and the measures used (i.e., num-ber of narrative phrases, proportion of and type of evaluative comments,questions and responses).

The present study illustrates how mothers vary their storytelling style as afunction of their values and that these values are reflected through culture, ed-ucation and reported goals of storytelling. More in-depth inquiry is needed toidentify variations within and between cultures across SES, age and gender ofthe child, goals of storytelling as well as types of questions (labeling, yes/no,tag, descriptive and evaluative) used during storytelling. In conclusion, con-sideration of other narrative approaches (personal storytelling, worded books,etc.) may provide further understanding of how parental socialization occursthrough narrative activity.

APPENDIX A

US narrative: ... a mommy and a daddy frog and what is over here <Child:babies> babies that’s where the frog went. He went back to his family he, hewas a daddy frog. He had to go back to the mommy and all of the babies.Oh he is so happy now. Look it, he found his frog.. Is he going to leave thefrog there with his family? He left the mommy and the daddy and the babiesbut what’s he got in his hand? <Child: a baby> he taking a little baby frogand everybody looks nice and happy. The End.



Indian narrative: You know what the boy found? Both boy and the doggiesaw, no there are not just two, the whole family is there. Look, how smallfrogs are coming out. You know these frogs are very happy because theywere playing near their mommy and daddy. You know as soon as these frogssaw the boy and the doggie they got a little surprised, little afraid too. Youknow what the boy did? Boy could recognize the frog that they brought homebefore. So what he did, he picked up that frog from all these small children.The boy then said: “Hey doggie, we are now going to take this frog homebecause he’s our good friend and we love this frog.” Isn’t it? The boy thenis waving at the whole family and saying: “You people stay here but I’mgoing. I will take this frog to my house.” Tell me, did this boy do the rightthing by bringing the frog to his own house? <Child: No, he didn’t do theright thing> M: You know the frog should be with his family. You shouldn’tbring one family member and separate them from all the other members.......You know, this little frog is now separated from his whole family. He is verysad <Child: Yes, he is very sad, mommy> M: Now the boy is very attachedto the frog. He in fact fell in love so he cannot leave the frog there. So hepicked up that frog said good bye, good night to all the family members andcame home with is doggie You know all the family members are sitting here,look at them They are very sad.

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An exploratory study of mother-child storytelling in East ...ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/10199/HarkinsRay.pdf · to explain the variation observed in ... emphasis on cohesion