Books for small children in a gender perspective

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate if gender stereotypes are mediated to children between 0-3 years through books suitable for their age. This thesis concerns books that are available in public libraries. The content will be analysed by using a combination of methods, both content analysis of all the books in our study and a qualitative analysis of a smaller number of these books. With inspiration from both Robert Connell and Yvonne Hirdman and their theories of gender and gender stereotypes, this material was read and we wanted to examine if books for very young children might establish stereotypes. Our analysis showed that many known stereotypes are common in these books. For example there are more books with boys in leading parts than girls. Boys are allowed to be wilder than girls and they can play more dangerous games; girls are supposed to stay inside and peacefully play with dolls.Uppsatsnivå: