The purpose of the present study is to explore six-year-old children& / #8217 / s understanding of the superhero phenomenon, through cartoon superhero figures. Particularly Spiderman was chosen as a typical symbol of the superhero genre, futhermore Spiderman is found to be the favorite cartoon character in Turkey.The study was conducted in the preschool of Middle East Technical University in
Spring 2007. Ten children / five girls and five boys, attending to the preschoolprogram participated in the study.
The main emphasis in the present study is given to children' / s own expressionsvia drawings, play and interviews, to understand their ways to make sense of the superheroscenarios. Therefore selecting qualitative methods and aphenomenological approach in particular was considered to be a valid form of nquiry.
At the end of the analysis procedure the total number of meaning units (MUs)was 40. In order to verify the results of the study, randomly selected 30 MUs
were presented to completely independent and separate reviewers. The feedback from the reviewers indicated a high rate concordance of established at
86.6 %. After the results of this auditing process, confirmability of the present
study is maintained.
The results indicated that superhero theme was enjoyable for participant
children, as it provided a sense of well-being. Aggressive behavior, which is
generally linked to superhero issue, was hardly ever observed. However, gender
is found to be a central factor on children' / s understanding of superheroes, and
stereotypical thinking was perpetuated via superhero animations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12608558/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 July 2007 |
| Creators | Unlusoy, Asli |
| Contributors | Erden, Feyza |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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