Examining authorial agency in elementary children’s narratives

Abstract

This paper investigates stories written by children and aims to reveal how children resist or neutralise the social and cultural conditions in their writing. We draw on Archer’s critical realist theory of agency and structure and Stephens’ conceptualisation of agency as a relational experience that involves intersubjectivity. Looking at 8 stories written by year 5 and year 6 children, we explore how children exercise agency and challenge the sociocultural conditions. Our analysis explores children’s authorial choices about discourse (language), story (characters, action, and settings) and significance (values and worldviews) and how these choices shape the author’s agency or portray the agency of the characters. Overall, positioning against the sociocultural conditions is achieved and exercised through the child’s position as the author or through the child’s depiction of the characters and the use of ‘subject positions’ in stories. Findings suggest that agency is exercised in relation to a range of conditions including the laws of nature, normative social relations, interpersonal relationships, authoritative or passive parenting, and the socio-political context. The results shed light on narratives as spaces for children to practice agency and calls for pedagogical approaches that position children as active and capable participants of a classroom. Implications are discussed for education.