Gender Stereotypes in Children’s Picture Books: A Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis

Children’s picture books are essential instruments in young children’s conceptualisations of gender and gender roles, highlighting the importance of such representations as a fundamental educational issue. Empirical research in the area has revealed how the landscape of gender representations has undergone great changes, where obvious prejudice and stereotypes have gradually retreated and been replaced by subtler and more covert forms. Thus, we argue a more revealing and robust approach is needed to accommodate these new forms of gender stereotyping. A Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) approach is proposed in this chapter to investigate the meaning-making process of constructing gender stereotypes in children’s picture books. The analysis of four sample picture books demonstrates how gender stereotypes are constructed through combinations of verbal and visual choices, how covert gender stereotypes differ from overt gender stereotypes, and how the authors/illustrators utilise different multimodal strategies to represent and construct gender relations.