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1	Constructions of Childhood Found in Award-winning Children's Literature Wilson, Melissa Beth January 2009 (has links) This study explores the connections between childhood and children's literature. In this connection there is an inherent tension between writing and reading "real" childhood, as it is being lived by children now, and interacting with an adult-normative, adult-reconstructed childhood that may or may not have existed in the past. The purpose of this study was to address this tension by analyzing fifteen recently published award-winning children's novels, from the United States, The United Kingdom, and Australia, in order to ferret out how present-day childhood is constructed within this text set. Using a hybrid methodology called critical discourse analysis, buttressed by the frameworks of postmodern childhood studies and critical children's literature studies, the novels were analyzed in a hermeneutic, reader-response oriented approach in order to excavate themes that addressed childhood in the narratives. Findings are presented as a meta-plot, wherein the child protagonists leave a failed home, set out on a journey of knowledge and experience gaining a sense of agency, and, at the end of the novel, construct a new home replete with the child protagonists' personal meaning. This meta-plot includes instances of the child protagonist performing parrhesiatic acts (Foucault) as well as developing non-hierarchical relationships as conceptualized by an I/You relationship (Buber). Other findings include the construction of childhood as a time of "becoming" and a time of "is-ness," childhood as a time of resilience, and childhood as a time of difficult decisions. Conclusions of the analysis speak to the idea of the child serving as a Modern bringer of hope, who manages to create moral order from within an adult-created postmodern milieu. Implications relate to the fields of literacy education, replications of the study with an interpretative community of children, and continuing to define the burgeoning methodology of critical content analysis. Buber Critical Children's Literature Studies Meta-Plot Parrhesia Postmodern Child Postmodern Childhood Studies
2	Min granne barndomen, hur var det nu igen? : Om barndomsdiskurser i Min granne Totoro Fredriksson, Joel January 2022 (has links) In this study, the Japanese animated film My Neighbor Totoro was analyzed with regards to what childhood discourses can be found in it, and why these discourses in particular appear. To do this, discourse theory was used as the main theoretical basis, and certain aspects of hermeneutics were also used, such as combining the hermeneutic spiral with basic film analysis as a method. The childhood discourses that are discussed are the natural child, adult children and child adults, the competent child, the vulnerable child, postmodern childhood, the lonely/psychological child, and gender discourses. First, the life context of Hayao Miyazaki was examined to see what childhood discourses that might have influenced him. The natural child seems to be the most prominent discourse throughout Miyazaki’s life and his previous work, and the discourse appears in My Neighbor Totoro as well. However, so do all the other discourses. The results are that the view of childhood expressed in the film is that children develop the best in proximity to nature and the divine. Children should aspire to become competent adults, but adults should also come closer to childhood and nature. Postmodernity is dismissed as bad for children, and the natural childhood is deemed to be in need of saving. Children are also according to the film beings capable of complex thoughts and feelings relating to fears, death and family relations. These difficult thoughts are dealt with by their imagination – an imagination that is non-separable from their reality. This could indicate another childhood discourse: the imaginative child. Apart from all this, ways to use films like this one in education are also briefly discussed through film pedagogy. / <p>Slutgiltigt godkännandedatum: 2022-01-14</p> Hayao Miyazaki Studio Ghibli film analysis discourse theory discourse analysis film pedagogy childhood discourses the natural child the competent child the vulnerable child postmodern childhood the lonely child the psychological child gender discourses adult children child adults the imaginative child Heidi Anne of Green Gables Moomin Pippi Longstocking shintoism filmanalys diskursteori diskursanalys filmpedagogik det naturliga barnet det kompetenta barnet det bräckliga barnet postmodern barndom det psykologiska barnet det ensamma barnet genusdiskurser vuxenbarn barnvuxna det fantasifulla barnet Anne på Grönkulla Mumin Pippi Långstrump General Literature Studies Litteraturvetenskap

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Constructions of Childhood Found in Award-winning Children's Literature

Min granne barndomen, hur var det nu igen? : Om barndomsdiskurser i Min granne Totoro