In this thesis, gender in children's literature is the focus. The purpose is to analyze the gender balance and how the characters affecting the storyline are portrayed. Are the characters portrayed with gender stereotyped characteristics? This study also aims to investigate what educators think of the study's selected books. The books selected for this study are popular children’s books in Sweden that are often used while teaching. The text provides information as to whether educators show awareness of the gender perspective in the study’s chosen books. Do they make conscious decisions and are they aware of what the literature contains? To obtain this, both a questionnaire and a literature analysis will be conducted. The literature analysis creates a deeper picture of which values ​​the literature conveys while the questionnaire is to expand the knowledge of the teachers' views on the books that the study process. The result shows factors that educators have taken into consideration when choosing children's literature and general opinions on specific literature. The result of the literature analysis shows a stereotypical gender distribution among all the children's books, but the main characters was not stereotypically portrayed. / I detta examensarbete är genus i barnlitteratur i fokus. Syftet är att analysera genusbalansen och hur huvudkaraktär och deras motspelare framställts. Har karaktärerna könsstereotypa egenskaper? Studien syftar också till att undersöka vad pedagoger tycker om studiens utvalda böcker. Böckerna som blir utvalda för studien är populära böcker i Sverige som ofta används i undervisning. Texten ger information huruvida om pedagoger visar medvetenhet om genus i dessa populära böcker. Gör de medvetna val och vet de vad litteraturen innehåller? För att få dessa resultat genomförs både en enkät och en litteraturanalys. Litteraturanalysen skapar en djupare bild av de värderingar litteraturen förmedlar medan enkäten är för att utöka kunskapen om pedagogernas syn på böckerna som studien behandlar. I resultatet framkommer faktorer som pedagoger har tagit hänsyn till när de väljer barnlitteratur och överskådliga åsikter gällande specifik litteratur. Resultatet av litteraturanalysen visar en stereotyp könsfördelning i barnböckerna men huvudsakligen ingen stereotyp framställning av litteraturens huvudkaraktärer.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the same murder case is being portrayedin three of Swedens biggest true crime podcasts; P3 Dokumentär, True Crime Sweden and Mordpodden. The case that has been studied is the murder of 15 year old Therese Johansson Rojo who was killed in June 2009. She was found dead in a forest in Stureby, Stockholm in Sweden and later on a 16 year old boy and his 16 year old girlfriend got arrested for the murder. Both of them were found guilty, the boy for murder and the girl for conspiracy to commit murder. The study examined similarities and differences in how the three main characters are described in the different podcasts and how gender is being represented. To achieve valid and reliable arguments and results, we have supported our statements in theories and previous research related to crime, gender and framing inmedia. The method that has been used in this study is a qualitative study including toolsas lexicality, modality and rhetoric. The analysis is divided in three parts, one for each main character and with two themes for each part, how their looks and personality are described in the different podcasts. The analysis showed that all three podcasts portray the main characters in similar ways. There is a lot of focus on the looks of the victim, Therese who is being portrayed as a stereotypic girl. She is also described as the ideal victim as a young and innocent girl. The mainly focus is however, especially in Mordpodden and in True crime Sweden, on the 16 year old girl and 16 year old boy and their relationship with each other. The boy and the girl are being described with dichotomies and are not portrayed, unlike Therese, as typical gender stereotypes. The 16 year old girl is mostly described as controlling and the boy is often described as an innocent victim. This means that the girl is being portrayed as masculine and the boy as feminin. By describing Thereseas the ideal victim and the perpetrators based on dichotomies, the podcasts create gender, based on Fagerström and Nilssons (2008) theory about how gender is being created.

[pt] Este trabalho aborda a problemática da expressão afetiva masculina em relacionamentos heterossexuais. Para tal são discutidas questões relativas à construção cultural dos estereótipos de gênero, os fatores psicossociais que contribuem para o desenvolvimento da identidade masculina, bem como a relevância da comunicação em relações afetivas. No intuito de verificar a influência de tais estereótipos na forma como alguns homens experimentam e expressam o sentimento amoroso, foram realizadas doze entrevistas com homens de classe média, residentes na zona sul da cidade do Rio de Janeiro, com idades entre 24 a 30 anos e 40 a 47 anos. A análise das entrevistas permitiu observar que o clichê de que os homens não falam sobre emoções e sentimentos não se verifica nas experiências amorosas de quase metade dos sujeitos. / [en] This work investigates the problem of male communication of emotions in heterossexual relationships. We discuss the cultural construction of gender stereotypes, the psychossocial factors that contribute to the development of the male identity, as well as the relevance of communication in love relationships. In order to verify the influence of such stereotypes in the way a few men experience and express love, twelve interviews were conducted with middle class men, with ages ranging from 24 to 30 years and 40 to 47 years, who live in the more affluent districts of the city of Rio de Janeiro. The analysis of the interviews allowed us to observe that the cliché according to which men do not speak about emotions and feelings was not verified in the love experiences of almost half of the subjects.

The different spatial experiences in the lives of young boys and girls may partly explain sex differences in spatial skills (Baenninger & Newcombe, 1995; Nazareth et al., 2013; Newcombe, Bandura & Taylor, 1983). While several studies have examined the influence of spatial activities on the development of spatial skills (e.g., Nazareth et al., 2013) there currently exists no widely used comprehensive measure to assess children’s concurrent participation in spatial activities and engagement with spatial toys. Study 1 of the current dissertation filled this gap in the field of spatial research through the creation of the Spatial Activity Questionnaire, a comprehensive survey designed to assess children’s involvement in spatial activities and engagement with spatial toys of diverse gender-typed content. The toys and activities 295 children were reported to have access to and engage with were explored to assess patterns of play with spatial and gender-stereotyped toys and activities. A sample of 76 children between 4 and 6 years of age and their primary caregivers participated in studies 2, 3, and 4 to explore the toys and activities young children have access to and play with (study 2), the link between play and mental rotation (study 3), and the relation between play, gender stereotypes, and mental rotation skills (study 4). Findings reveal great variability in the toys and activities children have access to and play with, with sex difference suggesting girls play with low-spatial and stereotypically feminine toys and activities more than boys while boys play with highly-spatial and stereotypically masculine toys and activities more than girls. Adding to the exiting literature suggesting the inconsistency of sex differences in early mental rotation skills, our results suggest no sex differences in children’s mental rotation ability. Furthermore, no relations were discovered between children’s play, gender stereotypes, and mental rotation ability. These findings point to the need to further explore the influence of play on when and how sex differences in mental rotation ability develop in order to promote fun and easy ways to support spatial learning in young boys and girls.

Stereotypes associating men more strongly with science compared to women have harmful implications for women’s science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) outcomes. Exposure to successful female STEM role models can buffer women from the effect of these stereotypes and lead to better performance and greater interest in STEM fields. Moreover, role model identification is especially important for improving women’s STEM outcomes. The current study posits that encouraging women to reflect on the ways in which they identify with a role model will improve women’s STEM identification, STEM sense of belonging, weaken explicit STEM stereotypes, and will strengthen implicit associations between women and science over the course of a semester, which will then lead to increased desire to pursue STEM opportunities and improved STEM GPA. Seventy-two incoming freshmen women interested in majoring in STEM completed the study. Participants read two role model biographies at different time points during the semester, and at both time points were asked to either write about the ways in which they identified with the role model, asked to write facts about the role model, or asked to write facts about a woman whose hobbies they read about (i.e., control condition). Results revealed that encouraging women to identify with a role model weakened explicit stereotypes and strengthened implicit women-science associations compared to merely exposing women to a role model. Furthermore, encouraging women to identify with a role model and merely exposing women to a role model tended to increase STEM sense of belonging compared to not exposing women to a role model. These findings suggest that encouraging women to identify with a role model is important for improving women’s STEM attitudes. / acase@tulane.edu

This experimental study used eight written vignettes to analyze the effects of professor gender, professor leadership style (democratic/autocratic), and type of situation (task/personal) and participant gender on evaluations of professorsʹ competence, likeability and masculinity characteristics. Undergraduates from the College of Arts and Science (N=932; Males=464, Females=467), and the College of Education (N=722; Males=140, Females=582) were used. Results indicated that research participants rated democratic professors significantly more competent, likeable, and more feminine than autocratic professors. Contrary to expectations derived from gender spill-over and gender congruency theories, male participants did not rate female professors more negatively than their male counterparts when they acted autocratically in a personal situation (i.e., gender incongruent manner.) Exploratory results revealed trends that are discussed along with theoretical and practical implications.

The purpose of this study is to use a qualitative approach to get an understanding of what is expected of social workers targeted towards women managers in social services. Nine social workers were interviewed. The empirical data was then analyzed on the basis of gender theory. Respondents did not see their supervisor as a manager but more as a social worker with special tasks. Our empirical data indicates that there is a strong belief that men and women possess different properties. The social workers thought that men were likely to make a career and women were considered to work in the area of social care. It was considered to have a different leadership in social services than in other organizations.

This study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative content analyses to examine how news articles written by the New York Times portrayed Hillary Clinton during the 2000 New York Senate Election. The study combined research on political elections, gender stereotypes and an inductive analysis of coverage of the election to derive at four dominant frames. These frames, political activity, horserace, gender stereotype and traditional first lady were used to determine how the media responded to Hillary Clinton’s unprecedented decision to run for election. Results show that Hillary Clinton received more coverage based on her political activity than any other frame. In addition, there was no significant difference in the frames used based on the tone of the articles.

This study explores the extent to which national newspaper coverage of a successful female coach reflects the broader gender ideology of society. This study looks specifically at the New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today's coverage of six Women's Division I national basketball tournaments in which Pat Summitt coached the University of Tennessee in the championship game. The years included for this analysis are 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2004. This rhetorical analysis examines this print coverage to determine if, consistent with previous research on media coverage of the female athlete, Summitt's traditional gender role is privileged over her coaching role. The results suggest that Summitt is characterized in ways that marginalize and trivialize her coaching acomplishments. The findings also suggest that even as women succeed in the male-dominated world of sport, societal pressures require that they be presented as properly gendered heterosexual females.

Around the globe, many organisations are still dominated by male managerial models. In spite of the progress in the status of women in our society in the last decades, higher positions in organisations are still held by men, even though women have the capacity to occupy these positions. This work investigates many studies about the different arguments linked to organisations that researchers/authors have done on this subject. It uses narrative as a key focus to explore the under-representation of women in higher positions within national and multinational organisations. The theoretical part of this thesis enables a better understanding of aspects of leadership in organisations,        and discusses the whole idea of gender labelling leadership as masculine or feminine, but also to present the principal hurdles encountered by women in organisations. Using the empirical method involves undertaking semi-structured interviews with women and men in high management positions, in order to construct a solid basis for analysis and discussion by putting forward solutions. I hope that my work will enable my readers to find some solutions, and that it can serve as a guideline for firms in order to encourage them to benefit. I will try to propose a solution for them to harness the under-utilised talent of their female employees and to pool and foster an environment of respect and equity based on merit rather than on gender.