Article published In: Storytelling in the Digital Age: New challenges
Edited by Anna De Fina and Sabina M. Perrino
[Narrative Inquiry 27:2] 2017
► pp. 334–356
Challenging the bounds of tellability
The interactional management of a bullying narrative within a girl group theme discussion
Published online: 19 October 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.27.2.07sva
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.27.2.07sva
Abstract
The study focuses on how preadolescent girls in instances of adult-children talk within the institutional setting of a girl group discussion forum construct joint stories that challenge a master narrative of school bullying. The unfolding of one such multi-party storytelling event on the topic of victimization is analyzed; primarily highlighting the participants’ interactional management of diverse moral concerns, blame allocations, and issues of responsibility. All in all, the study highlights how the girls’ collaborative storytelling comes to redefine moral concepts and test the institutional borders of tellability in ways that also raise questions about the institutional foundations of school bullying interventions.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Previous research on institutional talk involving children
- Children’s storytelling as social practice in context
- Empirical data and the setting of girl group theme discussions
- Analysis
- Identifying the problem
- Added detailing and moral category work
- Allocating blame and establishing responsibility
- Pushing aspects of victimization and establishing adult-child dichotomies
- Concluding discussion
- Notes
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