Report into sex roles in childrens books

A.)
Title: Research Roundup and “dragons, dinner ladies and ferret’: sex roles in children’s books
Author: Lesly Best
Date of Publication/Completion: 1992
Publisher or Source: Sociology Review

B.)
Best needed to analyse the male and female roles portrayed in some pre-school books. The aim was also to find out if Glenys Lobban’s conclusion of sex roles in children’s books in 1974, still stands in 1992.
Best gained access by using 53 students (in Leeds BTEC), split into three groups, each working independently, to produce reports based on their own group’s findings, which Best then collected and, created the report. Also, Lobban’s previous research was referred to in the report.
A positivist approach, using statistics, was used with each student bringing in three pre-school books, each being as objective as possible by bringing books they had at home or used in nursery. 132 books were used altogether and these were then organised in several different ways. Th...