Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Beauty, Personal, in literature; Children's literature; Human body in literature; Women in literature; Academic theses;

Abstract

This exploratory study centers on a small number of children's books to examine how female characters are portrayed, and to consider the question, "Do gendered images of female characters exist visually in children's literature? I selected 5 books from the time periods of 1980 to 1989 and from 2000 to 2005. These books were written by U.S. authors and are directed at children aged 5-8 years. Findings are tentative, based upon the limited number of books included in the study, but patterns indicate that children's literature portrays gender somewhat stereotypically. I include body structure, dress, beauty and decoration, and movement of female characters in the study, and note that gendered patterns are present.

Year of Submission

2006

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology

First Advisor

Marybeth Stalp

Second Advisor

Martha Reineke

Third Advisor

Kimberly Knesting

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

2006

Object Description

1 PDF file (63 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Included in

Sociology Commons

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