Nigerian Children's Stories: A Cultural Perspective

Abstract

This paper explores the narrative construction of experience of Nigerian children through the stories they told while participating in a variation of Vivian Gussin Paley’s story-telling/storyacting exercise. Two theoretical approaches guided this research; narrative theory and the strength of children’s perspectives. Bruner’s theory of narrative construction is used as a theoretical framework for understanding children’s cultural participation. A sociology of childhood perspective is used to ground the research method and prioritize the child’s voice. Stories were collected from 3-5-year-old children attending a private school in Abuja, Nigeria. From the stories collected 6 story types were identified and 10 themes emerged within and between each story type. Of the 10 themes 4 of the themes were analyzed for cultural relevance and examples of cultural reproduction. The results of this study contribute to the ongoing research in children’s cultural participation and narrative construction of experience broadly, and to Nigerian children’s storytelling and perspectives, specifically.