Browsing by Author "Suomalainen, Heidi"

The purpose of this study is to find out how boys are portrayed in the Finnish ABC books through different decades. The data of the study consist of ABC books from the 1950s, 1970s, 1990s, 2000 and 2010s. The newest ABC book is published in 2016, and it follows the Finnish study plan of 2014. The ABC books chosen for this study have been published during the last 60 years. With 10 or 20 years' time difference between each book, it is possible study the changes in the portrayal of boy characters. The study focuses on the texts and pictures where the boy characters are shown. Special attention is paid to the looks and action of the boys in the ABC books. The boy characters are compared to the girl characters presented in the ABC books, in order to analyze whether the way the boys are being described differs from the way the girls are being described. The assumption is that there are some remarkable differences in this portrayal, especially when comparing the oldest ABC book from the 1950s to that of 2010s. Previous research has shown that the great changes taking place during the 1960s has also had its effect on the ABC books of that time; there should be a considerable decrease in stories and pictures related to national identity. As a new feature after the 1960s, the equality in friendships between the boy and girl characters has emerged. However, a gendered portrayal of the characters is still to some extent visible in ABC books until end of 1990s. The method of the study was content analysis. Each ABC book was first analyzed in detail after which the results were compared with each other. Special research questions were used to find out how the boys were shown during different times and to what extent the portrayal of boys and girls differed from each other. A context analytical approach is visible in the way that the norms and values of each ABC book were mirrored in relation to their own time. The results of the study show that even if the way boys are described has changed a lot from 1950s to 2010s, some features have remained the same. In the ABC books from 1950s and 1970s boys are shown as brave and active actors. Starting 1990s there is more sensitiveness in the way boys are described than in the earlier ABC books. Starting from the 2000s the boy and girl characters do not differ remarkably from each other. In the ABC book of 2016 the boys are clearly portrayed as background characters, being more quiet than the girls.