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Sixty years of gender representation in children’s books: Conditions associated with overrepresentation of male versus female protagonists

As a reflection of prominent cultural norms, children’s literature plays an integral role in the acquisition and development of societal attitudes. Previous reports of male overrepresentation in books targeted towards children are consistent with a history of gender disparity across media and societ...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Casey, Kennedy, Novick, Kylee, Lourenco, Stella F.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8673601/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34910745
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566
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author Casey, Kennedy
Novick, Kylee
Lourenco, Stella F.
author_facet Casey, Kennedy
Novick, Kylee
Lourenco, Stella F.
author_sort Casey, Kennedy
collection PubMed
description As a reflection of prominent cultural norms, children’s literature plays an integral role in the acquisition and development of societal attitudes. Previous reports of male overrepresentation in books targeted towards children are consistent with a history of gender disparity across media and society. However, it is unknown whether such bias has been attenuated in recent years with increasing emphasis on gender equity and greater accessibility of books. Here, we provide an up-to-date estimate of the relative proportion of males and females featured as single protagonists in 3,280 children’s books (0–16 years) published between 1960–2020. We find that although the proportion of female protagonists has increased over this 60-year period, male protagonists remain overrepresented even in recent years. Importantly, we also find persistent effects related to author gender, age of the target audience, character type (human vs. non-human), and book genre (fiction vs. non-fiction) on the male-to-female ratio of protagonists. We suggest that this comprehensive account of the factors influencing the rates of appearance of male and female protagonists can be leveraged to develop specific recommendations for promoting more equitable gender representation in children’s literature, with important consequences for child development and society.
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spelling pubmed-86736012021-12-16 Sixty years of gender representation in children’s books: Conditions associated with overrepresentation of male versus female protagonists Casey, Kennedy Novick, Kylee Lourenco, Stella F. PLoS One Research Article As a reflection of prominent cultural norms, children’s literature plays an integral role in the acquisition and development of societal attitudes. Previous reports of male overrepresentation in books targeted towards children are consistent with a history of gender disparity across media and society. However, it is unknown whether such bias has been attenuated in recent years with increasing emphasis on gender equity and greater accessibility of books. Here, we provide an up-to-date estimate of the relative proportion of males and females featured as single protagonists in 3,280 children’s books (0–16 years) published between 1960–2020. We find that although the proportion of female protagonists has increased over this 60-year period, male protagonists remain overrepresented even in recent years. Importantly, we also find persistent effects related to author gender, age of the target audience, character type (human vs. non-human), and book genre (fiction vs. non-fiction) on the male-to-female ratio of protagonists. We suggest that this comprehensive account of the factors influencing the rates of appearance of male and female protagonists can be leveraged to develop specific recommendations for promoting more equitable gender representation in children’s literature, with important consequences for child development and society. Public Library of Science 2021-12-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8673601/ /pubmed/34910745 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566 Text en © 2021 Casey et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Casey, Kennedy
Novick, Kylee
Lourenco, Stella F.
Sixty years of gender representation in children’s books: Conditions associated with overrepresentation of male versus female protagonists
title Sixty years of gender representation in children’s books: Conditions associated with overrepresentation of male versus female protagonists
title_full Sixty years of gender representation in children’s books: Conditions associated with overrepresentation of male versus female protagonists
title_fullStr Sixty years of gender representation in children’s books: Conditions associated with overrepresentation of male versus female protagonists
title_full_unstemmed Sixty years of gender representation in children’s books: Conditions associated with overrepresentation of male versus female protagonists
title_short Sixty years of gender representation in children’s books: Conditions associated with overrepresentation of male versus female protagonists
title_sort sixty years of gender representation in children’s books: conditions associated with overrepresentation of male versus female protagonists
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8673601/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34910745
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566
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