Critical Imagination as Cultural Practice: Children's Storytelling and Meaning-Making Across Educational Contexts

• In Event: Cultivating Change through Critical Imagination and Collective Liberation in Childhood

Abstract

This presentation examines how young children across diverse cultural and socioeconomic contexts use critical imagination through storytelling and creative expression as forms of cultural practice and knowledge production. It demonstrates how children's narrative practices serve as tools for maintaining cultural knowledge while processing complex experiences and envisioning possibilities for change. Through ethnographic research in multiple educational settings—including formal schools, community centers, and informal learning spaces—the presentation demonstrates how children's imaginative practices often exceed adult expectations and challenge developmental frameworks that position imagination as merely cognitive milestones. The study reveals how children's storytelling serves as both healing practice and a form of resistance to educational approaches that marginalize their voices and experiences.

Author

• Belinda Mendelowitz, University of the Witwatersrand