One Step Forward and Two Steps Back: A Study of the Image of Women in the 100 Basic Works of Literature in Turkey

Erkan Cer

doi:10.13189/ujer.2015.031209

Abstract

Children's books of literary quality may affect gender perception, self-perception, and the social roles of children through the illustrations, main characters, and situations that they reflect. The Turkish Ministry of Education suggested a list consisting of stories, novels, poetry, and puns under the title Basic Works of The objective of this research is to determine how the image of women is presented in the children's stories in these 100 Basic Works of Literature. The data in this study were collected through document analysis in conjunction with contents analysis. These 20 stories were first studied for their depictions of main characters, illustrations, and titles. Research shows that the female characters are depicted with images reflecting traditional gender roles. Of all the images, female characters were presented mostly as passive (79 times or 19 %), weak (76 times or 18 %), sex objects (45 times or 11 %), or emotional (44 times or 10 %).

Highlights

Children’s literature has an important function in passing on social values to children
In order to investigate the difference between main characters, one sample Chi Square goodness of fit test was conducted
The sample stories were selected from the list of the 100 Basic Works, which were recommended to the students at the primary level of education by the Turkish Ministry of Education in 2004

Summary

Introduction

Children’s literature has an important function in passing on social values to children. Children’s books contribute greatly to children’s acquisition of knowledge and experience of a variety of situations, events, or places [1]. They are a significant tool in transferring general values during their socialization [2]. In the early stages of childhood, children often face the cultural and universal values of the society in which they grow up as they begin to come into contact with books [3]. These values, approved or denied at times, bring together some clues concerning the modes of conduct that society has produced and valued. The objective of this research is to determine how the image of women is presented in the children’s books called the “100 Basic Works.”

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion