Elizabeth Richner
Graduate Student
esr2@lehigh.edu

Academic History
Lehigh University
M.S. 1999, Psychology

Lancaster Bible College
B.S. 1996, Bible/Counseling

Research Interests
1. Children’s narratives: Preschoolers’ representation and use of characters to express knowledge about self and others, including gender identity.
2. Collaborative contexts for cognitive and social development.
3. Social understanding and theory of mind development.
4. Role of play and imagination in development.
5. Young children’s understanding of religious concepts.

I am currently researching the relationship between children’s developing understanding of self and others and their representation of characters in spontaneous narratives. In particular, I am interested in children’s participation in socially-situated narrative activities, and the impact of peer-oriented storytelling on children’s developing models of personhood.

Selected Publications
Richner, E. S. & Nicolopoulou, A. (2001). The narrative construction
of differing conceptions of the person in the development of young
children's social understanding. Early Education & Development 3,
393-432.

Conference Presentations
1. Nicolopoulou, A. & Richner, E. S. Narrative development and emergent literacy in social context: Integrating peer-group practices in the education of low-income children. Paper presented in an invited symposium on “The collaborative classroom as a context for development” at the IXth European Conference on Developmental Psychology (Spetses, Greece: September 1-5, 1999).

2. Nicolopoulou, A. & Richner, E. S. The development of main character in young children’s narratives. Poster presented at the 1999 Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language (University of the Basque Country, San Sebastián, Spain: July 12-16, 1999).

3. Nicolopoulou, A. & Richner, E. S. From actors to characters to persons: The development of character representation in young children’s narratives. Poster presented at the 1999 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (Albuquerque, NM: April 15-18, 1999).

4. Richner, E. S. & Nicolopoulou, A. Character development in young children’s narratives. Poster presented at the 1998 meeting of the Jean Piaget Society (Chicago, IL: June 11-13, 1998).