Narrative, Imaginary Play, Art, and Self: Intersecting Worlds

This study documented the ways in which the spontaneous narratives of a focus group of young children reflected the ways in which these children constructed meaning about their world and their place in it. Participants were six kindergartners who engaged in extended episodes of imaginary, dramatic play and produced complex descriptive narratives of their visual texts (i. e., drawings, paintings and three-dimensional objects). Data collected included transcripts of videotapes and audiotapes of children's narrative talk, field notes, memos and visual text artefacts. Three themes emerged from the qualitative analysis of the data: (1) Engendering emerged from observations of the ways in which children's narratives focused on self or I and revealed the ways in which children construct (engender) their identities as moral, social, cultural and gendered beings; (2) Crossing texts and re-configuration emerged from the ways in which children negotiate their roles (self) with others, that is, the children begin to see themselves in relation to others (re-configuring the I to We); and, (3) Re-construction/re-imagination emerged from the ways in which children use narrative to grapple with abstract scientific, philosophical and moral questions, that is, through narrative interactions with others, children build hypothesis about themselves and their world which, during subsequent narrative interactions, are challenged and re-formulated (re-imagined). The narratives created by these children revealed the complex journey they take in the process of forming a self-identity.