Values
in Children's Books
A work is tied to
ideology not so much by what it says as by what it does not say. (Machery, 1996 p.34)
Children's literature is a site for cultural transmission. Books
both reveal and are illuminated by the values of the time in which they were
written. For example, in Beatrix Potter's The
Tale of Peter Rabbit, Peter and his sisters behave in accordance with a set
of gender expectations that reflect the nineteenth century, while in Wind in the Willows, Mole and his
companions would be at home in the Victorian gentleman's club.
Comparing an original text with a sequel or re-working can
illuminate the values that are embedded in a text. Comparisons can be made
between books such as Jan Needle's Wild
Wood and Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows; Robert Leeson's Silver's Revenge and Robert Louis
Stevenson's Treasure Island; Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso
Sea and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre or Susan Moody's Misselthwaite and Frances Hodgson
Burnett's The Secret Garden. Stephens
(1992) suggests that in reading these texts which exist in relation to one
another the 'dialogic effect throws the ideology of both texts into sharp
relief'. (p. 45)
Activity
This would need some time to
prepare
Either
ask student teachers to find some of the books mentioned above or select two
and provide extracts so that they can compare the values reflected in each
text.
What does this suggest about
shifts in values over time?
This should lead to discussions of
how to approach books reflecting ideologies which would not be seen as
appropriate now.
In an accessible essay, 'Ideology and the Children's Book', Peter
Hollindale (1988) suggests that ideology operates at three different levels
within texts:
- Explicit ideology: being the values and beliefs with which an
author consciously imbues their work. For example a story that tackles green
issues will overtly include beliefs about caring for the environment
- Implicit ideology: being the unexamined values - those that the
author is unaware of conveying
- Dominant culture: being the widely accepted values of the dominant
culture in a given time and place.
One of the difficulties in detecting
the values located in texts is that we tend to take for granted the 'truth' of
our own values, so it is difficult to detect ideological content, especially
when it is implicit, in texts where the values are consonant with our own. Such
texts appear to express what Althusser calls an 'obviousness'.
Hollindale (ibid.) proposes some key questions for helping
readers locate the ideology in children's books:
- What happens if the components of a text are transposed or
reversed?
- What does the denouement tell us? For example, does a happy ending
reaffirm values that appear to have been challenged earlier in the text?
- Are the values of a novel presented as a package - i.e. aggregated
into virtue or vice or Britishness?
- Do some novels undermine the values that they superficially appear
to be celebrating?
- Are desirable values associated with niceness of character? Is it
true that an attractive philosophy cannot be held by an unattractive character?
- Does anyone in the story have to make a difficult choice - of
behaviour, loyalties etc. in which there is more than one course of defensible
action?
- Is any character shown as performing a mixture of roles? Does any
character belong to more than one subculture or group?
- Who are the people who do not exist e.g. characters who are
invisible but should be present or those who are not named and only identified
by a role?
Activity
Ideally, student teachers should
read Hollindale's essay before carrying out this activity, but if it is not
readily available, ask them, first of all individually, then in small groups or
pairs, to apply the questions above to children's books that they know well in
order to detect the writer's ideology. After each group has discussed their own
favourites, share the findings in the whole group.
Did the ideology seem to be
explicit or implicit or was it, perhaps almost invisible - and so part of the
'dominant' culture?
Stephens
(1992) argues that learning how to read against the text is as important for
children as it is for adults. This ability to detect bias is implied in a
number of objectives in the Primary Framework, for instance in investigating
ways in which attitudes are conveyed through writing, distinguishing between
fact and opinion or locating the use of persuasive devices. It is often assumed
that bias is a feature of certain types of non-fiction writing, but it is also
an unavoidable element of fiction and it is essential that student teachers are
alert to the subtle ways in which bias operates in fiction as well as non-fiction
if they are to develop children's abilities as discerning and critical readers.
