NARRATIVE AND LOGICAL STRATEGIES IN SOCIOCOGNITIVE INTERACTION BETWEEN CHILDREN

This study is an analysis of the ''meaning giving'' process in childre n when they have to classify empirical objects. There are three stages to the experiment: (1) the children performed a classification task i ndividually; (2) they performed it with a companion; (3) in the indivi dual control situation they performed it again but alone. The aim of t his research project was to establish: (1) how children change the mea nings they give to objects when they move from an individual situation to a social one; and (2) the role of the two children's different cla ssification strategies in the negotiation of shared meanings. The samp le consisted of 72 6-year-old children. Three different classification criteria were distinguished: category; function; and narrative. The r esults showed that children who used narrative criteria in the first p hase (''narrative children'') modified them during the second phase in favour of more categorial criteria. Analysis of the interactional pro cess revealed that narrative children were significantly more willing than ''logical children'' (who had used categorial criteria in the fir st phase) to come to terms with their companion's point of view. In th e third phase both types of children changed their classification stra tegies, in part absorbing their companion's classification approach. W e conclude that: (1) the personal approach to giving a meaning to obje cts influences the individual child's interaction strategies; and (2) the experience of comparison and social conflict modifies attribution of meaning in narrative and logical children.