Browsing by Author "Koski, Emilia"

The objective of this Bachelor’s Thesis was to examine how multiculturalism is presented in Finnish picture books of the 2010s. I chose multiculturalism as the subject of my thesis because of its topicality. In a few decades, Finland has changed from a country of few cultures to a multinational society. As multiculturalism is increasing, more and more of children’s book readers and their inner circles have roots outside of Finland. In my thesis, I examine what kind of image of different cultures picture books provide for their readers. My research material consists of five children’s picture books published in the 2010’s. I chose the books based on the supply of libraries in the metropolitan area. I chose to look at the latest children’s books to get new information about the subject. I used deductive content analysis as the analysis method of the material. As the framework of my analysis I used Mendoza’s & Reese’s model of interpretation of children’s literature as applied to my research. The material was examined from two perspectives: how is multiculturalism presented in the Finnish children’s books of the 2010s and what kind of image do children’s picture books transmit to their readers about different cultures? In the research material multiculturalism was presented through characters from different cultural backgrounds. Multicultural characters were mainly depicted with darker skin than other characters. There were differences between the ways of illustrating multicultural and Caucasian characters. This was seen in the way the hair, nose and eyes of characters with Asian features and characters with dark skin were illustrated. The research showed that multiculturalism was a natural part of the picture books of the 2010. Multiculturalism was mainly reflected in the illustration of the books but in individual cases multiculturalism was also discussed in the content of the books.