Moralizing, normalizing or absent teachers – how children’s fiction represents differences

Abstract

Due to a increase of children’s fiction addressing the subject of ‘differences’ in the last few years in the Brazilian context, this study proposes a reflection on the way these books represent differences related to minority groups and gender. The analyses are focused on the character roles that are played by the teacher as she/he is faced with differences. Ten books published in Brazil by different authors and publishing houses between 2004 and 2008 were analyzed. The main argument of the analyses is based on the assumption that the increase of the issue of ‘difference’ in recent Brazilian children’s books is in accordance with various state policies relating to minorities rights, on the one hand, and to a broad development of criticism of children’s fiction from the 1970s until the present day as to stereotypical representation of gender and minority groups in the British and North-American context, on the other hand.