Forventninger til kjønn i barnehagens litteraturutvalg.

The objective of this study is to investigate the selection of literature at a kindergarten in order to conduct a narrative analysis of what implicit expectations there are to genders in the specific literature.
On the basis of a narrative understanding, the contents of books and fairytales can either maintain traditional and stereotype gender roles or contribute to exploring these.

In the kindergarten, staff mainly decides which books to buy, which books to read, and which books to be available. It turned out that the kindergarten’s books and fairytales typically portrayed girls and boys on the basis of a traditional gender role pattern. Boys were typically portrayed as strong and active, whereas girls were adaptable and passive. Furthermore, boys were much more frequently the main character in the books than girls. From the interviews with social pedagogues, it was evident that they often chose books on the basis of number of pages and length rather than on what the books were about. It is important for children’s perception of their own, as well as others’, gender that they are not presented with one-sided gender patterns, as this can contribute to dualistic and limited gender categories which draw the line for what is legitimate behaviour.  

This study is based on discourse analysis. Data collection consists of narrative analysis of the books used at the kindergarten, and a
focus group interview with four social pedagogues.

Østerås, B. (2009). Forventninger til kjønn i barnehagens litteraturutvalg. Hedmark: Høgskolen i Hedmark, Avdeling for lærerutdanning og naturvitenskap Institutt for samfunnsvitenskap.