Challenging Adamant Norms : An analysis of the portrayal of childhood and gender in the Handbook for Superheroes books

Abstract: Children’s literature is one of many important influences of childhood socialization and teaches children about contemporary society. Therefore, it is important to understand what messages children’s literature convey. In this thesis, I analyze four contemporary, Swedish graphic novels, aimed at children between the ages of six and nine years old. My research questions are: how do the studied books portray children and childhood? And how do the books portray the intersectional positions of girlhood and boyhood? To gather and analyze my data, I used close reading and thematic analysis. This process resulted in three themes, which I call: ‘a child in need of protection or the competent child’, ‘the gender-neutral superhero or the gendered superhero’ and ‘constructing girlhood and boyhood’. The results show that the books depict children in two ways; either as dependent and vulnerable or as competent agents. This relates to traditional, developmental understandings of children as well as understandings of children as formulated by the new paradigm for the study of childhood. Moreover, the results problematize the role of the superhero, specifically the ways in which the books explicitly gender the superhero in the text and portrays what could either be interpreted as a gender-neutral or an implicitly masculine superhero in the illustrations. Finally, the results indicate that the books depict girlhood and boyhood as contrasting identities. In conclusion, the authors of the books seem interested in challenging conventional norms regarding children and childhood, in line with a larger trend among Swedish children’s literature. At the same time, the books also convey traditional norms regarding both girlhood and boyhood, such as by the clear markers of age and gender in the illustrations.