Gender representation in English and Mandarin children's books recommended by Singapore's National Library Board (NLB)

Abstract

Books recommended by early reading programmes play a pivotal role in shaping young children’s knowledge of gender identity. The present study examines how females and males are represented in English and Mandarin fiction books from NLB’s recommended reading list for Primary 1 and 2 children. Variables such as frequency counts of female and male appearances in both textual and illustrated content, occupational roles, types of names by which the book characters were identified and the order of appearance of gendered characters were examined. The findings reveal a general pattern of female dominance in the English children’s books, and significant male dominance in the Mandarin children’s books. Similarities between the English and Mandarin books include mothers being depicted in domestic settings more frequently than fathers, and some female characters embodying both stereotypical and non-stereotypical qualities; differences include greater female representation in appearances, pronouns, identification by formal names and order of appearance for the English books, but quantitative imbalance biased towards males for the Mandarin books in these aspects and more. The study demonstrates that there needs to be a push for Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE) to implement guidelines that can enable educational authorities (eg. NLB, schools) and parents to select appropriate reading materials for children.