Narrating Science, Shaping Selves: Oral Stories Latine Caregivers Share with Their Preschoolers As Pathways to Science Learning and Identity

ABSTRACT We studied the oral stories 226 U.S. Latine caregivers (most Mexican‐born, earning under $50,000 annually) shared with their children ( M age = 51.81 months) when prompted to tell a science‐ or nature‐related story. Inductive qualitative coding and analyses revealed personal experience stories—reminiscing, caregiver memories, and fictionalized family stories—comprised the majority and most often described outdoor activities. Fictional stories—invented stories, popular children's stories, and folk stories—commonly involved animals. Caregivers most often gave identity‐related reasons for telling personal experience stories and supporting learning reasons for telling fictional stories. Meaning making appeared mostly through emotion and evaluation in fictionalized family stories and reminiscing, and through teaching moments and connections to past and future experiences in caregiver memories, which also included more temporal information. We discuss implications for science learning and practice, and how this work extends Fivush's contributions to family storytelling, autobiographical memory, and narrative socialization.