Läsebokens mening och budskap – en genuskritisk textanalys av "Den magiska kulan"

Sammanfattning: All forms of texts carry messages and meanings depending on societal ideals and values, including children textbooks. In this critical text analysis we focus on how the values regarding gender is portrayed in a textbook for primary school students. The book we base our analysis on is Den magiska kulan (The Magical Ball) by Mats Wänblad (2011). Our purpose with this text analysis is to shine some light on the way gender is manifested in texts. The representations of what is seen as masculine and feminine are contributing factors on how we experience social reality based on discourses. Which notions of gender are expressed in the text? In what way are masculine and feminine traits represented in the texts’ meanings and messages? The method we chose to use is inspired by critical discourse analysis in which we focus on text as a discursive practice. To create an adequate analysis we combined our method with gender theories and terms central to the subject. Our result shows that the book represents both traditional and alternative gender roles and gender patterns. Male and female characters are represented almost equally throughout the book, however we found that female characters were portrayed with male characteristics more often than male characters with female characteristics. This shows that theories regarding the gender system are conformed by the text. Ideals concerning alternate gender roles, such as “the soft man” and “tomboy”, challenge stereotypes and our thoughts beyond dichotomies.