From ‘tiaras and twirls’ to ‘action and adventure’. Eliciting children’s gendered perceptions of Disney characters through participatory visual methodology.

This study, based on interpretative phenomenological methodology, examines the influence Disney media and merchandise may have on children’s understandings of gender. Although there are various studies in this area, most focus on the Disney Princesses’ effects on girls’ gender development and few directly elicit the views of both girls and boys (Golden and Jacoby 2018). The current study attempts to address this gap by investigating how girls and boys, aged five to eight years, interpret messages circulated by Disney to make sense of the gendered norms and roles of its characters. Participatory visual methods used were a draw and talk exercise and an image-values line activity. Critical discourse analysis identified two key gender discourses: physical appearance and gendered behaviours, with children’s exclusionary binary opinions core to both. However, both boys and girls valued the more active traits portrayed by the contemporary princesses. Through adopting a feminist poststructuralist lens, this study contributes to the existing body of knowledge that informs of ways to deconstruct stereotypes with children to promote positive gender development in childhood.

Citation

Hamilton, P., & Dynes, R. (2023). From ‘tiaras and twirls’ to ‘action and adventure’. Eliciting children’s gendered perceptions of Disney characters through participatory visual methodology. International Journal of Early Years Education, 31(2), 482-501. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2022.2164259

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Journal

International Journal of Early Years Education

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10034/627416

DOI

10.1080/09669760.2022.2164259

Type

Article

Description

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Early Years Education on 03/01/2023, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2022.2164259

ISSN

0966-9760

EISSN

1469-8463

Additional Links

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09669760.2022.2164259