Evaluating stories for diverse audiences

Abstract

The issues are similar in storytelling. These students of different races, sexes, and ages had very different reactions to the story variants they studied, reactions that depended on their cultural experiences as well as their individual viewpoints. So, too, will a storytelling audience bring their own cultural perspectives to the story they hear. The creators of these variants were also responding, consciously or unconsciously, to cultural contexts for The Story of Little Black Sambo; so, too, must storytellers engage with the cultural contexts of the stories they tell.