Barbie Princesses, Dinosaur Dragons and Gender

09/21/2005

Barbie Princesses, Dinosaur Dragons and Gender

To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.
Seneca

An upcoming article in Gender & Education recently caught my eye. In this article, according to author Eva Änggård of the Department of Child Studies at Linköping University in Sweden, "[Y]oung children’s narration in words and pictures is discussed from a gender perspective. The article is based on a project in which eight pre-school children made their own books. In their stories, the children reused narratives picked up from different media, both traditional fairytales and popular cultural products. The reuse of those narratives gives children opportunities to explore gender positions in a playful way. The narratives produced by the children had, in certain respects, a gender-stereotyped content. The girls and the boys selected gender-specific themes for their stories. But in their stories, the children also made reinterpretations of traditional stories and gender patterns. The girls let the female characters play the active roles and the boys let their heroes become friends with the enemies. In this way, the children used the stories creatively, reshaping them to fit their own purposes."

Änggård, E. (2005, December). "Barbie princesses and dinosaur dragons: narration as a way of doing gender." Gender & Education, 17, 5, pp. 539-553.

Help plan Educators Conference in Asia/Pacific. At the 2005 World Forum in Montreal we organized a series of sessions called the Educators’ Exchange, for those responsible for training early childhood professionals. We are thinking about following this up with a Working Forum for Educators in the Asia-Pacific region in 2006. This would be a highly interactive 3 or 4 day meeting focusing on the needs and interests of educators in this field. In planning this we are eager to solicit your views and the best time to schedule such a meeting as well on the most appropriate topics to address in this setting. To help us with this planning, we would appreciate it if you could take five minutes and provide your input here!

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