Home in Intersectional Contexts: Content Analysis of Children's Picture Books

Presenters

Rachel AbramsFollow

Disciplines

Education | Elementary Education | Elementary Education and Teaching | Teacher Education and Professional Development

Abstract (300 words maximum)

Childhood is socially and culturally constructed (Kennedy & Bahler, 2017). Children notice various representations in books, and they affect how children see themselves and their self-esteem (MacArthur & Poulin, 2011). This study examined how children’s picture books address gender representation, centering on girls associated with toys, clothes, and language use. We focused on how dominant whiteness is penetrated through girlhood regarding the protagonists' dolls. For the book selection, we used keywords to search for the books and narrow down the selected books; the keywords and phrases were ‘family’, ‘home’, ‘gender’, ‘gender roles’, ‘toys’, and ‘dolls.’ we initially searched for over 100 picture books. addition, through multi-layered book selection criteria such as publication years (from 2000 to the present), age levels (preK-5th graders), and fiction with human characters, out of our initial search of over 100 books, we selected twelve books for analysis based on our criteria. We analyzed the picture books through content analysis (Johnson et al., 2016) and illustration analysis (Keifer & Tyson, 2010). The analytic codes we identified were toys and dolls, family structures, stereotypes (meaning that these books either reinforced stereotypes or had content that challenged stereotypes), and parents' gender roles for girl protagonists. We found that dolls are employed to transmit “femininity and maternity” (Forman-Burnell, 2021) for girl protagonists. We also found that dolls function as the catalyst to deliver the discourses of (white) femininity and maternity in the selected books and that girls with diverse backgrounds are underrepresented. This study provides critical insight into what books teachers and parents would select and how they address gender representation to empower children. This study also suggests that authors and illustrators of children's picture books should pay attention to the lack of representation of girls, especially girls with diverse backgrounds in picture books.

Academic department under which the project should be listed

BCOE - Elementary & Early Childhood Education

Primary Investigator (PI) Name

Jinhee Kim

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Home in Intersectional Contexts: Content Analysis of Children's Picture Books

Childhood is socially and culturally constructed (Kennedy & Bahler, 2017). Children notice various representations in books, and they affect how children see themselves and their self-esteem (MacArthur & Poulin, 2011). This study examined how children’s picture books address gender representation, centering on girls associated with toys, clothes, and language use. We focused on how dominant whiteness is penetrated through girlhood regarding the protagonists' dolls. For the book selection, we used keywords to search for the books and narrow down the selected books; the keywords and phrases were ‘family’, ‘home’, ‘gender’, ‘gender roles’, ‘toys’, and ‘dolls.’ we initially searched for over 100 picture books. addition, through multi-layered book selection criteria such as publication years (from 2000 to the present), age levels (preK-5th graders), and fiction with human characters, out of our initial search of over 100 books, we selected twelve books for analysis based on our criteria. We analyzed the picture books through content analysis (Johnson et al., 2016) and illustration analysis (Keifer & Tyson, 2010). The analytic codes we identified were toys and dolls, family structures, stereotypes (meaning that these books either reinforced stereotypes or had content that challenged stereotypes), and parents' gender roles for girl protagonists. We found that dolls are employed to transmit “femininity and maternity” (Forman-Burnell, 2021) for girl protagonists. We also found that dolls function as the catalyst to deliver the discourses of (white) femininity and maternity in the selected books and that girls with diverse backgrounds are underrepresented. This study provides critical insight into what books teachers and parents would select and how they address gender representation to empower children. This study also suggests that authors and illustrators of children's picture books should pay attention to the lack of representation of girls, especially girls with diverse backgrounds in picture books.