How do Finnish children express care and justice in comic strips and written narratives?

Abstract

This case study explored how children’s moral expressions like love and violence differ according to the mode of narrative, comic strips or written narratives. Sixteen third-grade children from a primary school in Finland took part in the study. Children’s moral expressions were divided into justice and care. Reading frequency of fairy tales and linguistic and artistic abilities were also assessed in order to make a more in-depth interpretation of elements that underlie these different moral voices. The data for four of the children are presented in detail as the basis for the discussion. Children expressed their morality more strongly in comic strips—potentially offering a more sophisticated method for examining how children express their morality.

Keywords:

• moral
• comic strip
• narrative