D.Litt. et Phil. (Library & Information Science) / One of the characteristics of publishing in South Africa is that it does not reflect the demographic make-up of South Africa. Publishing in South Africa has been largely financed and controlled by whites and little effort until recently has been expended on the incipient black reader. This has contributed to the lack of a reading culture amongst black people in South Africa. Oral cultures or even cultures with residual amorality Her from Western literate societies. These differences affect cultural products, such as stories, and responses to cultural products. Readers whose norms and expectations of formal discourse are governed by residual oral mindset relate to a text quite differently from readers whose sense of style is fundamentally textual. When an author writes, he postulates an audience. He has to know the tradition - the intertextuality - in which he is working. He can then create fictional roles that the reader is willing and able to play. It is not easy to get into a reader's mind, but it is not an impossibility if both the reader and writer are familiar with the 1iterary tradition in which they work, whether this tradition is oral or literate. There are major differences between an oral and literate culture in their thought processes, perceptions of the world, narrative structures and understanding and response to literature. This must affect cultural accessibility of text. An oral culture, such as black South Africans, will look for different structures, characters and types of discourse in their literature.

This master thesis is aiming to find out how school libraries work towards children in school years 1-6. The mainfocus is how the school librarians and teachers work with literature and reading. The theoretical viewpoints aremainly the sociocultural theory and the child perspective.The study was conducted with participants from five different schools in Uppsala, in the form of qualitativesemi-structured interviews. The results show that schools work with literature first and foremost in a pragmaticway, with reading-strategies and activating discussions. Very little time is spent on reading for its own sake. Thegeneral opinion is that the school libraries could – and should – be used more in the daily school work. Thelibrarians claim that they lack both time and financial resources to execute certain projects or be able to offer awider diversity of material. Finally, it is obvious that school libraries vary a lot in both ambition and resources.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, 1990. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (in v. 3).

Thesis (M.S. Ed.) - - Bank Street College of Education, New York, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references and abstract.

Uppsatsens problemformulering beskriver kategorisering som fenomen och dess konsekvenser på samhällsstrukturen. De mest etablerade och explicita kategorierna – man och kvinna – ses som ett resultat av de kategoriseringsprocesser som ständigt pågår. Strukturernas och kategoriernas existens och reproduktion finns i alla sociala samspel, och min huvudsakliga hypotes är att en viktig del i reproduktionen av våra könsidentiteter utgörs av det arv vi ger till barn. Denna studie syftar till att belysa huruvida det finns ett signifikant sätt att skildra könsidentiteter i barnböcker. Uppsatsen har en teoretisk utgångspunkt i en feministisk köns- och diskursteori. Frågeställningen besvaras genom en diskursanalytisk studie av barnböcker. Resultatet visar att det i många fall finns ett signifikant sätt att skildra de olika könen på, och att det finns tydliga skiljelinjer i vad som karaktäriseras som manligt respektive kvinnligt. Detta mönster av en I-särhållning av könen är ibland subtilt och ibland utpräglat, men utifrån teorier och tidigare forskning är det möjligt att visa på att det faktiskt tycks finnas ett mönster. Det mest centrala i uppsatsen är åskådliggörandet av det dialektiska förhållandet mellan text och bild i barnböckerna och samhällsdiskursen de är en del av. / The phenomenon of categorization has a great impact on community structure. This essay describes one of the most established and explicit categories - male and female – as a result of the categorization processes which constantly are going on. The structures’ and categories’ existence and reproduction can be found in all social interactions, and my main hypothesis is that an important part of the reproduction of our gender identities consist of the legacy we give to children. This study aims to shed light on whether there is a significant way of describing gender identities in children's books. The essay has a theoretical basis of a feminist gender- and discourse theory. The issue is answered by a discourse analytical study of children's books. The result shows that in many cases there is a significant way of describing the different sexes, and that there are clear divisions in what is described as male or female. This pattern of a separation of the sexes is sometimes subtle and sometimes pronounced, but based on theories and previous research it is possible to show that there actually seems to be a pattern. The most central in the paper is the visualization of the dialectical relationship between text and image in children's books and the public discourse they are part of.

The aim of this thesis is to highlight how male and female characters are portrayed in children’s books, that have football as a theme, and are written for children between 9-12 years of age. I have chosen this subject so that I, as a pre-school teacher, can adhere to the curriculum’s aim of maintaining the school’s responsibility for counteracting traditional gender roles. I aim to study how gender is represented in literature for children. I shall apply Yvonne Hirdman’s theories on the gender system which is built on the principals whereby the sexes are separate entities and there is a structural hierarchy between them. There is also a gender contract which maintains a balance of power according to which woman is considered inferior to man. From the reproduction process Hirdman identifies cultural influences that literature conveys to the reader as to how genus concepts are created. To answer questions on how characters in the books are presented, I use a qualitative analysis. I primarily use Maria Nikolajevas “character-theory” and gender based “opposite concepts”. This thesis deals with the following questions: Which kinds of descriptions are used to present female and male characters, and if there are, can one see any differences between them? How are the relations between coaches, parents and children portrayed? From these I have come to the conclusion that gender is presented in a traditional manner so that in stories in which the main characters are female are motivated by love; while stories in which the main characters are male are about football. Girls are rather orientated towards relations, as apart from boys who are described as more independent and egocentric. I can also identify that the team leader is gentler and more personal when dealing with girls, in contrast to when dealing with boys. It may be mentioned here that some of the characters have at time some qualities that go against the norm and which may be considered as challenging the established “keeping them apart principle”. That man is the norm on the football arena is however common in all the books.

This master's thesis in Library and Information Science examines how the genre division of the horror fictionis constructed at the children and youth department of a library by studying subject headings of the titles.The aim is to examine what is included in the genre, in the two labelings called vampire and nail-biter/spine-chiller, what separates them, and what difference there is between children and youth thrillers/horror fiction. Also the cover designs and how readers portray these books are studied. The study is made in order to develop the knowledge of the genre to help librarians and borrowers. The great popularity of the genre among borrowers and people in general, and the importance of having knowledge of things that borrowers are interested in, are the motivation of performing the study. The method is a case study and conducted with and based on genre theory which shows how a genre is defined, how it can be divided and what conventions there are for the horror fiction in particular. Discourse analysis helps to see in between what frames the thriller is constructed, and how these elements subdivide the genre and influence it and those who encounter it, library borrowers and librarians. Di-scourse analysis also examines the standards of the thriller.The analysis showed that the discourse of horror fiction includes both the expected features, in terms ofgenre conventions, such as ghosts and vampires, and more commonplace such as sisters. The differences and similarities of these parts in the genre were discussed and compared in the light of discourse analysis and genre theory in order to reveal how these constructions might influence the readers and the borrowers. The major conc-lusions of the study is that the encounter between the unexpected and menacing, and the everyday life is what makes the thriller frightening, now as in history, and so it follows its genre conventions. The discourse of the hor-ror fiction standards are difficult to influence by being expected of borrowers and otherwise they are not thrillers. The study has shown that certain subjects recur more often than other which may affect the borrower in its per-ception of the genre. The genre division helps giving the borrower different kinds of frights and experiences. The joint is that the supernatural is present in the whole genre and convey feelings of excitement and fear which is the most important representative of the genre. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 555 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 512-555). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.