All Kinds of Good Stories.

Drawing attention to different models of storytelling, this paper summarizes information about specific aspects of children's oral narrative structure in several cultures and explores some implications these aspects have for multicultural education programs that include stories. The paper first describes a methodology for trying to understand narratives from different cultures, which might be termed a "derived etic procedure." The paper then discusses some cultural differences in storytelling, noting that: (1) European-American children often tell personal narratives that resemble fairy tales in general form; (2) Japanese children living in America tend to tell stories that are cohesive collections of several experiences they have had (usually three); (3) African-American children often begin and end with a theme, improvising upon events in between those two points; and (4) Latino children foreground their family connections to events, places, and even times. The paper also discusses two areas of classroom life affected by cultural differences in story-telling style: social interaction and curriculum. The paper concludes that narratives from all children tend to involve self-presentation around events that have happened to them in the past. A list of 109 references and a translation and transcription of a discussion between a Salvadoran child and an adult are attached. (RS)