Popular picture books and gender : Gender patterns in the most lent out picture books 2007

The purpose of this Master's thesis is to examine if stereotype gender patterns are showing, and how they are showing, in the picture books that have the highest number of loan in Sweden’s three biggest cities. It is also a purpose to show if these gender patterns can be compared to the outlook on gender in the curriculum. The method used is a qualitative text analysis. 13 picture books are analyzed on the basis of Yvonne Hirdman’s theories on gender and Maria Nikolajeva’s theories on children’s literature. It is the descriptions of characters that are target for the analysis. There are four types of character description: looks, actions, relationships and inner description. These are then set in relation to gender theories. The result of the study shows that stereotype gender patterns is still present in these kinds of books but there is also a visible change. Many of the books have at least one character that is not all stereotype. Often it is the looks that are traditionally male/female. Actions are not that stereotype and a tendency towards more sensitive boys are seen. Maybe because there still is a higher number of boys than girls in the picture books. The outlook on gender is not the same as in the curriculum but there seems to be a change towards it. This change can be something that library users and librarians are aware of, but it can also be an unconscious change that is connected to the society’s outlook on gender.Uppsatsnivå: