A receptividade de crianças e adolescentes à narração de histórias míticas

Abstract

Two integrated parts constitute this work, a theoretical articulation where we define what is narrative and storytelling as a form of narrative, the importance of storytelling as a pedagogical tool, as well as the specifics of the mythic narrative. Through the imaginary of Durand, the collective consciousness of Jung and the pedagogical view of the myth from Campbell we create an epistemological view to make a qualitative and quantitative research with students from the EMEF Chico Xavier in the city of João Pessoa, Paraiba located in Brazil. We selected a sample made by 77 students (39 boys and 38 girls) between 10 and 14 years enrolled in the last years of Elementary School. After an artistic performance where the myths of the Theft of Thor’s Hammer, Persephone’s Abduction, Brahma’s Birth and the Death of Osiris were narrated in a traditional way of storytelling we applied a qualitative and quantitative quiz and then analyzed the results with the help of the software SPSS. In this quiz, we strived to learn the receptivity of the students regarding the storytelling, their receptivity regarding the myths, their previous experiences with traditional storytelling, and their capability of perceiving the symbolic and imagetic language held by the myths. We searched for correlations between this data and age, gender, general satisfaction with life, religiosity and accesses of traditional and modern forms of entertainment. The results show that the sample was receptive to the narratives and the mythic content in them, regardless of the socio-demographic profile. Moreover, a fraction of the students was particularly sensitive to the mythic and imagetic content. We then discussed the data and proposed an instrumentalization for general education and for Religious Teaching specifically.