LOOKING FOR STEREOTYPICAL PORTRAYALS OF GRANDMOTHERS IN SOUTH AFRICAN MULTILINGUAL PICTUREBOOKS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/0027-2639/269Keywords:
picturebooks, portrayal of grandmothers, cultural diversity, multilingualism, ethnicit, South Africa, politics and publishingAbstract
Picturebooks are vehicles of knowledge and socialisation for children. In portraying grandmothers in children’s picturebooks, existing stereotypes are often enforced (Crawford and Bhattacharya 2014). This article set out to determine how, and if, the portrayal of grandmothers in a sample of multilingual picturebooks in South Africa is stereotyped and how possible stereotyping relates to South Africa’s cultural diversity. Ten books were selected that have been translated into more than four of South Africa’s 11 official languages.
By using quantitative coding these texts were deconstructed by looking for stereotypical representations of grandmothers and the relationships that exist between the portrayal of cultural groups and stereotypes. The findings indicated that stereotypical portrayals of South African grandmothers do not follow the patterns uncovered in studies of a similar nature in the United States (US) andthe United Kingdom (UK). South African grandmothers are stereotyped because of their goodness – their attitude of a positive servitude. In providing possible reasons for this deviation from the findings of similar studies elsewhere, the complex intricacies of politics and publishing activities in South Africa’s are briefly discussed.
References
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Zeece, P, 2007. Grandparents and grand books. Early Childhood Educational Journal, 35(2): 217-130.
Alexander, N. 1999. An African renaissance without African languages? Social Dynamics: A Journal of African studies, 25(1): 1−12. DOI:10.1080/02533959908458658 (accessed 15 May 2015)
Ansello, E. F. 1977. Age and ageism in children’s first literature. Educational Gerontology, 2: 255–274.
Bloch, C. 1999. The potential of early childhood for developing and sustaining literacy in Africa. Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies, 25(1): 101−129. DOI: 10.1080/02533959908458664 (accessed 16 May 2015)
Botelho, M. S. and M. K. Rudman. 2010. Critical multicultural analysis of children's literature: Mirrors, windows, and doors. International Research in Children's Literature 3(2): 229−231. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/ircl.2010.0114 (accessed 7 July 2015)
Crawford, P. A., and S. Bhattacharya. 2014. Grand images: Exploring images of grandparents in picture books. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 28(1): 128−144.
Danowski, J. and T. Robinson. 2012. The portrayal of older characters in popular children’s books in the US. Journal of Children and Media 6(3): 333−350. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2011.630741 (accessed 7 July 2015)
Davids, A. 1987. Arabic-Afrikaans. A view of the written Afrikaans of the Cape Muslim during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. South African Journal of Linguistics, 5(1): 24−40. DOI: 10.1080/10118063.1987.9724243 (accessed 15 May 2015)
Dellmann-Jenkins, M. and L. Young. 1997. The portrayal of older characters in award-winning literature for children. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 12: 96–100.
Department of Arts and Culture, 2014, ‘The Library and Information Services Transformation Charter,’ Pretoria: DAC. www.nlsa.ac.za/Downloads.../2014_Final_LIS_Transformation_Charter (accessed 20 May 2015)
Fenwick, G. and A. Morrison. 2009. Images of grandparents in young children’s picture books in the United Kingdom. New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship, 7(1): 127−145.
Gibson, L. R. 1988. Beyond the apron: Archetypes, stereotypes and alternative portrayals of mother in children’s literature. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 13(4): 177−181). http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/chq/summary/vO13/13.4gibson.html (accessed 4 July 2015)
Gilbert, C. and K. Rickets. 2008. Children’s attitudes towards older adults and aging: A synthesis of research. Educational Gerontology, 34(7): 570−586.
Hamilton, D. L. and J. W. Sherman. 1994. In Wyer, J. R.S. and T. K. Scrull, eds. Handbook of social cognition. 2nd ed. 1−68. Hillside, NY: Macmillan.
Hart, G. and M. Nassimbeni. 2013. From borders and landscape to ecosystem: Reconfiguring library services to meet the needs of South African youth. South African Journal for Library and Information Science, 79(1):13−21. http://sajlis.journals.ac.za doi: 10.7553/79-1-106 (accessed 20 May 2015)
Heale, J. ed. 2012. Children’s books in African languages. Pinelands, Cape Town: Biblionef. http://biblionefsa.org.za/about-us/#sthash.iaTTzYsG.dpuf (accessed 3 August 2015)
Hollis-Saywer, L. and L. Cuevas. 2013. Mirror, mirror on the wall: ageist and sexist double jeopardy portrayals in children’s books. Educational Gerontology, 39(12): 902 −914. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03601277.2013.767650 (accessed 4 July 2015)
Hurst, J. B. 1981. Images in children’s books. Social Education, 45(2): 138−142.
Jacobs, J. 2004. My ouma is ’n rockster. Pretoria: LAPA.
Jacobs, J. 2014. My ouma is ’n filmster. Pretoria: LAPA.
Janelli, L.M. 1988. Depictions of grandparents in children’s literature: A revisit. Educational Gerontology, 14: 193−202.
Leedy, P.D. and J. E. Omrod. 2014. Practical Research and Planning. 10th ed. Harlow: Pearsons.
Machet, M.P. and L. Tiemensma. 2009. Literacy environment in support of the development of literacy skills and voluntary reading. Mousaion, 27 (Special issue 1 on children’s literature): 58−76.
Mayring, P. 2000. ‘Qualitative content analyses.’ Forum. Qualitative Social Research, 1(2): Article 20. http://scholar.google.co.za/scholar?hl=en&q=Mayring%2C+P.+2000.+Qualitative+content+analysis.+Forum.+Qualitative+Social+Research%2C+1%282%29+%28Article+20%29.+&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp= (accessed 20 May 2015)
Morgan, N. 2006. Revisiting the South African book market: towards a change of tongue? Acta Academica Supplementum, 2: 179−196.
Pinsent, P. 2003. Crone or alien: the image of the grandmother in some recent picture books and illustrated texts, New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship, 9(1): 41-55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1361454032000232095 (accessed 8 July 2015)
Sciplino, C., P.K. Smith, H. Hurme, M. Rusek and P. Bäckvik. 2010. Representations of grandparents in children’s books in Britain, Italy and Greece, Finland and Poland. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 8(3): 298−316. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2010.498760 (accessed 8 July 2015)
Silverstein, M. and R. Giarrusso. 2010. Ageing and family life: A decade review. Journal of marriage and family, 27:1039−1058.
Song, S. 2014. Multiculturalism. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E.N. Zalta. Spring edition. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/multiculturalism/ (accessed 17 July 2015).
South African Book Development Council. 2007. ‘National survey into the reading and book reading behavior of adult South Africans.’ Pretoria: Department of Arts and Culture.
Statistics South Africa (StatsSA). 2012. ‘Census 2011†Statistical release.†Report P0301.4. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa.
StatsSA. 2014. ‘Poverty trends in South Africa: An examination of absolute poverty between 2006 and 2011.’ Report-03-10-06. Pretoria: StatsSA.
Turner, P. and S. Turner. 2011. Is stereotyping inevitable when designing with personas? Design studies 32: 30−44. http://dx.doi:10.1016/j.destud.2010.06.002 (accessed 7 July 2015)
Van der Vyver, M. 2015. My ouma is cool. Pretoria: LAPA.
Vasil, L. and H. Wass. 1993. Portrayal of the elderly in the media: A literature review and implications for educational gerontologists. Educational Gerontology, 19(1): 71-81.
Zeece, P, 2007. Grandparents and grand books. Early Childhood Educational Journal, 35(2): 217-130.
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Published
2015-11-18
How to Cite
Snyman, Maritha. 2015. “LOOKING FOR STEREOTYPICAL PORTRAYALS OF GRANDMOTHERS IN SOUTH AFRICAN MULTILINGUAL PICTUREBOOKS”. Mousaion: South African Journal of Information Studies 33 (2):111-27. https://doi.org/10.25159/0027-2639/269.
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