Francophone children’s literature published in 1997. Inventory of heroes and heroines proposed to children

Abstract

This study aims at building an inventory of heroes and heroines coming from the francophone children’s literature published recently during one year, up-dating impressive quantitative differences between the central main characters of both sexes. Male central characters systematically outnumber female central characters, however, the nature and age of these characters, and also authors’ sex and children’s ages targeted by those books qualify the disparities observed. The biggest asymmetries were obtained with humanized animal characters, and with human adults. Books that are written for young children contain the most asymmetries; and disparities between male and female central roles are primarily written by male authors. Results obtained from this study are comparable with those coming from the recent Anglo-Saxon children’s literature. The discussion concentrates on the multiple consequences arising from the under representation of the female main characters, as well as the lower value attributed to them.