Den dubbla stereotypen i flickböcker : En litteraturdidaktisk studie av karaktärerna Kitty Drew och Lotta Månsson

Sammanfattning: The aim of this paper is to examine the didactic potential of the books: Kitty and The Witch Tree Symbol, Kitty and the Mystery of the Stolen Books, Yes, See Lotta and Dear Lotta. All these booksbelong to the B.Wahlström series of girls' books, a literary genre that has been looked down upon overtime and considered harmful to read because of the fact that they where too stereotypical. The reason forthis is that the characters are far too gender stereotypical and can have a negative impact on young girls.The essay intends to investigate how these books, despite being girls' books can be used as tools in theschool's value base work, especially regarding gender equality, equality, norms and stereotypes. It alsoexplores how the selected books can be used in the classroom to address gender and sex issues.To answer the aim of this paper, a qualitative method, close reading, has been used. During the closereading, there has been a specific focus on how the feminine characters, in particular how the femaleprotagonists' Kitty and Lotta, are portrayed. The theoretical approaches used to analyse the books aredidactic potential, defined by Malin Alkestrand, and the gender system, defined and explained byYvonne Hirdman. The result of the analysis was that there is a didactic potential in how Kitty and Lottaare being described since their characterization on several occasions can provide an opening fordiscussing fundamental values in school. The study also showed that the books selected for this analysishad scenes that may work as a tool in a classroom context to address and discuss the topic of sex andgender.