Books provide an easily accessible means through which a child can learn what is "correct" behavior for his/her gender. Furthermore, a lack or deficiency of role models hinders children's development (Association of Women Psychologists, 1970). In addition, a study by Bandura and Walters (1963) found characters portraying "typical" sex-role behaviors in a story serve as a basis for a child's social development. Similarly, .
Gender Roles 4.
children presented with stereotypic gender roles in picture books tend to exhibit stereotypic behaviors, while those not presented with such stereotypes do not show signs of such behaviors (Ashton, 1983).
Seeing that children's literature plays a vital part in child development, it is important to make sure that what is being portrayed in the books will be beneficial to the child. In light of literature studies in the 1970's showing an extreme under-representation of women and a major focus on fallacious stereotypes (Association of Women Psychologists, 1975), Purcell and Stewart (1990) replicated the literature study to see if the misrepresentations still existed. The study found a great change in female portrayal. Woman were seen and focused on more often and they were given a wider range of both traditional and non-traditional roles. Although women's appearance in children's books has increased greatly, the study still demonstrated an inequality between males and females with men being portrayed more often and in a wider range of roles than women. More recent research by Gooden and Gooden (2001) showed that the total female count slightly edged out the male count with 51% of the population. Females were main characters 40% of the time in comparison with a 39% male representation. Furthermore, no significant difference was found between books of female and male main characters. However, while females were found more often, they were still given a lesser array of roles in comparison to males.
