Narrative worlds as developmental environments: a Narrative Ecological Framework for understanding story learning and interpretation
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Stories provide children with recurring encounters with characters, relationships, actions, situations, outcomes, and representations of social and experiential worlds. Research on narrative comprehension, story schemas, empathy, social cognition, and related forms of learning has documented important functions of narrative engagement, but less attention has been given to how the organisation of narrative worlds as a whole may contribute to recurring patterns of interpretation. This paper introduces the Narrative Ecological Framework (NEF), a conceptual framework for examining narrative worlds as organised environments in which multiple dimensions interact. NEF identifies six analytically distinguishable but interconnected dimensions: Agency Organisation, Relational Organisation, Practice Organisation, Situational Organisation, Outcome Organisation, and Representation Organisation. Their interaction produces a Narrative Ecological Configuration (NEC), providing an analytical basis for describing and comparing how narrative worlds organise action, relationships, practices, situations, outcomes, and their representation. The framework further proposes that when similar NECs recur across narrative experiences, readers may encounter recurring organisational regularities that can potentially become available for interpretation. Pattern Extraction and Pattern Abstraction are proposed as possible cognitive processes through which such regularities may be recognised and represented at a more general level, while interpretive orientations are conceptualised as possible tendencies through which recurring configurations may become relevant to subsequent interpretation. NEF does not posit a deterministic relationship between narrative configurations and particular beliefs, values, or interpretations; rather, it proposes a conceptual pathway that remains open to empirical investigation. The framework also distinguishes NEC as a narrative-level construct from Configurational Understanding as a reader-level construct, providing a basis for future research examining whether the capacity to recognise and integrate interactions among narrative dimensions is associated with deeper narrative comprehension. The paper concludes by outlining potential educational applications, limitations, and directions for empirical testing.
Source: Frontiers in Psychology
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,801
OpenAlex ID: W7220863212