Picture books deliver via communication to the children some socio-cultural characteristics. Thus, while interacting with the characters shown in the picture books and their value systems, children tend to identify themselves with the characters, lear...
Picture books deliver via communication to the children some socio-cultural characteristics. Thus, while interacting with the characters shown in the picture books and their value systems, children tend to identify themselves with the characters, learning about their gender roles. In this process, picture books influence much over their perceptions of gender roles.With such a basic conception in mind, this study was aimed at analyzing children's picture book characters' gestures in view of gender-wise stereotypes and categorization. Namely, this study focused on gender-wise gesture stereotypes in the children's picture books to categorize the gestures into feminine and masculine ones.To this end, the researcher attempted to explain 1) how the conceptions could be represented by gestures and 2) through what processes the fixed conceptions would be accepted by individuals. These study points may well be turned into the questions: What is the spirit, and how is it formed? How is the spirit related with the body? In this way, this study started with the discussion about ego's structure and its formation. In order to find the answers to the above questions, the researcher referred to the theories from psychoanalysis, sociology and communication studies to analyze the influence of picture books over children.As a result, it was found that children's picture books showed some fixed gestures different depending on their characters' gender, which could be divided into 6 categories. When children are exposed repeatedly to such gender-wise stereotype gestures, therefore, their ego would be greatly influenced by the gestures, just as Lacan or Mead argued in his metaphoric mirror or role play theory.In particular, the value systems inherent in picture books and the indirect experiences of life via picture books may well serve to play as important gender role models for growing children, it is deemed necessary to analyze and correct the fixed gender role conceptions suggested by children's picture books.