A content analysis of American children's fiction about the Chinese

Abstract

By examining a full range of titles about the Chinese published over the years, this study was to determine whether they offered a diverse representation, presenting various time periods, a wide range of family groups, living conditions, occupations, and life styles of the Chinese. The method of content analysis was used to examine thirty‐four works of contemporary realistic and historical fiction (including illustrated editions) portraying Chinese characters and set in China. These books were originally published in the United States from 1925 till the present, and were intended primarily for young people from second grade through ninth grade. The results suggest that the overall image of the Chinese that American readers might obtain from reading these fictional representations is of northern and southern parts of China in the early twentieth century, particularly from the 1920s to the 1940s, which mostly is a picture filled with devastation, turbulence, bandits, beggars, and poverty. These fictional descriptions offer a portrait of Mandarin‐speaking, economically poor, Han fanners with two‐syllable names. With the exception of the two‐syllable naming, such a portrayal is consistent with the majority of the Chinese living in those parts of China during those time periods. However, to update readers’ views, we need more children's fiction about contemporary Chinese culture with a presentation of diverse living conditions, economic situations, educational backgrounds, geographical regions, and life styles. To present fully the Chinese historical continuity and different ways of living changing with time, we also need more historical fiction to fill in the gaps existing in the currently circulating children's fiction about the Chinese.