Introduction: A Narrative on Narrative

Abstract

Narrative is ubiquitous and takes many forms, from written and oral language to still and moving images. Barthes (1975) observes that in every culture narrative is ever present:

Like life itself, it is there, international, transhistorical, transcultural. (Barthes, 1975, p. 1)

As Barthes describes, the earliest philosophers, including Aristotle, turned their attention to defining the characteristics of narratives and this has been the subject of debate as new forms of storytelling emerge. Regardless of innovations in medium and form, narratives continue to be highly important to the lives of children:

When we are born we enter into a world of stories: the stories of our parents, our generation, our culture, our nation, our civilisation. (Goodson, et al., 2010, p. 2)

As parents we teach children how to be, how to think, how to imagine, how to feel, how to remember, using stories in many different forms. Bruner (1986) describes narrative as a mode of thought and the work of Vygotsky (1978) and Elkonin (1978) demonstrates that it is make-believe or playing stories which form the richest context for young children’s learning. Hardy (1975) describes narrative as a primary act of mind:

Narrative is crucial in life and in literature.