Browsing by Subject "barnlitteratur"

The purpose of this study is to investigate what role children's books have in kindergartens and in what kind of situations they are being used. I wanted to know if the kindergarten teachers have pedagogical purposes behind the books that they choose to read with the children. The aim of this study is to get a whole picture of how children’s books are being used in kindergartens. The study is done by qualitative interviews with three kindergarten teachers from three different kindergartens. I have recorded, transcribed and analysed the interviews. The study shows, that the most dominating way of using children´s books in kindergartens is by reading aloud. All three kindergarten teachers find children’s books very important for the children, because of the development of language and ability to fantasize. The study also shows that these kindergarten teachers use book discussions in one way or another. They often discuss difficult words and the story itself with the children. One of the biggest challenges, according to the kindergarten teachers, is to be brave enough to choose literature out of your own comfort zone. The kindergarten teachers also highlight the fact that there is not enough time on the side of the routines to process and work with the children’s books in the way they want to. Lastly, only one of these three kindergarten teachers clearly mentions that the use of children’s books is based on the children’s initiative and interests.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze a selection of five children’s books from a gender perspective. In this study, a qualitative analysis method was used to analyze the selection of five children's books read in kindergartens and preschools in Porvoo. A qualitative analysis method was used for this purpose, to analyze five children’s books having been read in kindergartens and preschools in Porvoo. The research questions used are as follows: How are the different genders represented in the books? How do characters of opposite gender interact with one another in the books? In what ways do these interactions affect the roles of the characters in the books? The subjects of research were chosen through a questionnaire sent out to 9 kindergartens and preschools in Porvoo, in which pedagogues were asked to write down the title of at least 5 books they have read in their kindergarten or preschool class during the past year. The analysis was carried out with the help of preconceived notions about which characteristics and activities are stereotypical to which gender. These were compared to the characteristics and activities shown in the five books. The data from these analyses was compiled with the help of the following questions: Who are the characters? What are their relationship to one other? What do the characters look like? What are they wearing? What activities do they perform? The results show that each of the 5 books held many gender-stereotypes, with very few breaches of the gender barrier. The characters had gender-stereotypical looks, as well as interests, behaviors and actions that were typical for their sex. The results also show that the interactions between characters do not affect the roles of said characters in the book, but that there is, however, a recognizable pattern seen, in which male characters are often pitted against female characters, and vice versa.

The purpose of this study is to find out what kind of meaning experts ascribe children’s literature and how children’s literature can be used in a meaningful way. The purpose is to present three different perspectives of children’s literature and the use of it. Earlier studies show that children’s literature is not being used enough in early childhood education and because of that; this study concentrates on enlightening the possibilities of children’s literature. The theoretical part of the study addresses how children’s literature can support children’s development and the results of the study address how the informants think that children’s literature should be used. The study is a qualitative hermeneutic study. The data of the study is being raised by interviewing three different individuals with completely different backgrounds and relations to children’s literature. For the study I will interview a pedagogue, a readingambassador and an author. All the interviews are going to be taped and transcribed. The results of this study show that children’s literature supports children’s development in many different aspects, for example it supports children’s language development and the ability to show and feel empathy. The results of this study also give many examples on how children’s literature can be used in a meaningful way and a big part of that is to revise the story with the children. The results show us that children’s literature is very versatile and multidimensional and the result also gives a glimpse on the informants’ opinions of what good children’s literature looks like.