article analysis Read item 1the first article from your theme reading list for the semester. These articles are available under Course Documents. All of these articles are examples of content analysis. Briefly summarize the article in terms of * What questions did the author(s) have when they started this research? What were they wondering about? * According to the article, what have other researchers said about this topic? * What hypothesis or hypotheses or research questions were there and what variables were used? * What type of research was done? * What were the basic findings? Then give your response to the article: * Did you agree or disagree with any hypotheses that were stated? Did you think the research questions were interesting? Do you think the conclusions were correct? * Did the research seem to be done well? Did the researcher(s) make any of the errors of human inquiry that Babbie describes? How did the researcher(s) try to avoid such errors? * Based on this article, in your opinion, what new research needs to be done on this topic? THE NUTS AND DOLTS OF TEACHER IMAGES IN CHILDRENS PICTURE STORYBOOKS: A CONTENT ANALYSIS SARAH JO SANDEFUR UC Foundation Assistant Professor of Literacy Fducation University of Tennessee-Chattanooga LEEANN MOORE Assistant Dean, College of Education and Human Services Texas A & M University-Commerce Childrens picture storybooks are rife with contradictory representations of teachers and school. Some of those images are fairly accurate. Some of those images are quite disparate from reality. These representations become subsumed into the collective consciousness of a society and shape expectations and behaviors of both students and teachers. Teachers cannot effectuate positive change in their profession unless and until they are aware of the internal and external influences that define and shape the educational institution. This ethnographic content analysis examines 62 titles and 96 images of teachers to probe the power of stereotypes/cliches. The authors found the following: The teacher in childrens picture storybooks is overwhelmingly portrayed as a white, non-Hispanic, woman. The teacher in picture storybooks who is sensitive, competent, and able to manage a classroom effectively is a minority. The negative images outnumbered the positive images. The teacher in childrens picture storybooks is static, unchanging, and flat. The teacher is polarized and does not inspire in his or her students the pursuit of critical inquiry. A recent childrens book shares the sto- quently covered in paint at art time {Miss ry of a teacher. Miss Malarkey, home Malarkey Wont be in Today, Finchler, with the flu, narrates her concern about 1998). how her elementary students will behave In this text, which is representative of with and be treated by the potential sub- many that have been published with teachstitutes available to the school. Among the ers as central characters, teachers are substitutes represented are Mrs. Boba, a portrayed as insensitive, misguided, vic- 20-something woman who is too busy timizing, or incompetent. We perceive painting her toenails to attend to Miss these invalidating images as worthy of Malarkeys students. Mr. Doberman is a detailed analysis, based on a hypothesis drill sergeant of a man who snarls at the that a propensity of images painting teachchildren: So ya think its time for recess, ers in an unflattering light may have broad- HUH? Mr. Lemonjello, drawn as a small, er consequences on cultural perceptions of bald, nervous man, is taunted by the stu- teachers and schooling. Our ethnographdents with the class iguana and is subse- ic content analysis herein examines 96 41 42 / Education Vol. 125 No. 1 images of teachers as they are found in 62 picture storybooks from 1965 to present. It is our perspective that these images in part shape and define the idea of Teacher in the collective consciousness of a society. Those of us in teacher education realize our students come to us with previously constructed images of the profession. What is the origin of those images? When and how are these images formed and elaborated upon? It appears that the popular culture has done much to form or modify those images. Weber and Mitchell (1995) suggest that these multiple, often ambiguous, images are . . . integral to the form and substance of our self-identities as teachers (p. 32). They suggest t h a t . . . by studying images and probing their influence, teachers could play a more conscious and effective role in shaping their own and societys perceptions of teachers and their work (p. 32). We have supported this probing of images by analyzing childrens picture storybooks, examining their meanings and metaphors where they intersect with teachers and schooling. It is our intention that by sharing what we have learned about the mediums responses to the profession, we will better serve teachers in playing that conscious role in defining their work. We submit that childrens picture storybooks are not benign. Although the illustrations of teachers are often cartoon-like and at first glance fairly innocent, when taken as a whole they have power not just in teaching children and their parents about the culture of schooling, but in shaping it, as well. This is of concern particularly when the majority of the images of teachers are negative, mixed, or neutral as we have found in our research and will report herein. Gavriel Salomon, well known for his research in symbolic representations and their impact on childrens learning and thinking, has this to say about the power of media: Medias symbolic forms of representation are clearly not neutral or indifferent packages that have no effect on the represented information. Being part and parcel of the information itself, they influence the meanings one arrives at, the mental capacities that are called for, and the ways one comes to view the world. Perhaps more important, the culture that creates the media and develops their symbolic forms of representation also opens the door for those forms to act on the minds of the young in both more and less desirable ways, [italics added] (1997, p. 13) We see Salomons work here as foundational to our own in this way: if those images children and parents see of teacher are generally negative, then they will create a world view of teacher based upon stereotype. The many negative images of teachers in childrens picture storybooks may be the message to readers that teachers are, at best, kind but uninspiring, and at worst, roadblocks to be torn down in order that children may move forward successfully. Teacher Images in Childrens Picture Storybooks/ 43 Why Study Images of Teachers From Popular Culture? As we were preparing to teach a graduate class entitled Portrayal of Teachers in Childrens Literature and in Film, we began gathering a text set of picture storybooks that focused on teachers, teaching, and the school environment. We quickly became aware of the propensity of negative images of teachers, from witch to dragon, drill sergeant to milquetoast, incompetent fool to insensitive clod. We realized early in the graduate course that many teachers had not had the opportunity to critically examine images of their own profession in the popular media. They were unaware of the negative portrayals in existing texts, particularly in childrens literature. Teachers may not have considered that the negative images of the teacher may give the public further justification for a lack of support of education (Crume, 1989, p. 36). Childrens literature is rife with contradictory representations of teachers and school. Some of those images are fairly accurate and some of those images are quite disparate from reality (Farber, Provenso, & Holm, 1994; Joseph & Burnaford, 1994; Knowles, Cole, & Presswood, 1994; Weber & Mitchell, 1995). These representations become subsumed into the collective consciousness of a society and shape expectations and behaviors of both students and teachers. They become a part of the images that children construct when they are invited to draw a teacher or play school, and indeed the images that teachers draw of themselves. Consider, for example, the three-year old boy with no prior schooling experience, who, in playing school, puts the dolls in straight rows, selects a domineering personality for a female teacher, and assigns homework (Weber & Mitchell, 1995). This exploration into teacher images is a critical one at multiple levels of teacher education. Pre-service teachers need to analyze via media images their personal motivations and expectations of the teaching profession and enter into teaching with clear understandings of how the broad culture perceives their work. In-service teachers need to heighten their awareness of how children, parents, and community members perceive them. These perceptions may be in part media-induced and not based on the complex reality of a particular teacher. If information is indeed power, then perhaps those of us in the profession can better understand that popular images contribute to the publics frequent suspicion of our efficacy, and this heightened awareness can support us in addressing the negative images head on. Research Perspectives How do we as teachers, prospective teachers, and teacher educators come to so fully subscribe to the images we have both experienced and imagined? Have those images formed long before adulthood, perhaps even before the child enters school? Weber and Mitchell (1994) contend, Even before children begin school, they have already been exposed to a myriad of images of teachers, classrooms and schools which have made strong and lasting impressions on them (p. 2). Some of those 44 / Education Vol. 125 No. 1 images and attitudes form from direct experience with teachers. Barone, Meyerson, and Mallette (1995) explain, When adults respond to the question of which person had the greatest impact on their lives, other than their immediate family, teachers are frequently mentioned (p. 257). Those early images are not necessarily positive, often convey traditional teaching styles, and are marked with commonalties across the United States (Joseph & Burnaford, 1994; Weber & Mitchell, 1995). In addition to the years of on-the-job experience with teaching and teachers that one acquires as a student sitting and observing on the other side of the desk, a person has also acquired images and stereotypes of teaching and teachers from the persons experiences with literature and media. Lortie c a l l s this the apprenticeship-of-observation (1975, p. 67). These forms of print media (literature) and visual media are part of popular culture, which is inclusive of film, television, magazines, newspapers, music, video, books, cartoons, etc. In the past decade the literature on popular culture has grown dramatically as an increasing number of educators, social scientists, and other critical thinkers have begun to study the field (Daspit & Weaver, 1999; Giroux, 1994; Giroux, 1988; Giroux & Simon, 1989; McLaren, 1994; Trifonas, 2000; Weber & Mitchell, 1995). Weber and Mitchell (1994) explain, So pervasive are teachers in popular culture that if you simply ask, as we have, schoolchildren and adults to name teachers they remember, not from school but from popular culture, a cast of fictionalized characters emerges that takes on larger than life proportions (p. 14). These authors challenge us to examine how it is that children?even young children?would hold such strong images and that there be such similarity among the images they hold. Studies of childrens literature have previously examined issues of stereotyping (race, gender, ethnicity, age) as well as moral and ethical issues within stories (Dougherty & Engel, 1987; Hurley & Chadwick, 1998; Lamme, 1996). Recently Barone, Meyerson, and Mallette (1995) examined the images of teachers in childrens literature. They found a startling paradox: On one hand, teachers are valued as contributing members of society; on the other hand, teachers are frequently portrayed in the media and literature as inept and not very bright (p. 257). Barone, et al. (1995) found two types of teachers portrayed: traditional, non-child centered, and non-traditional, more child-centered. The more prevalent type, the traditional teacher, was not usually liked nor respected by the students in the stories. The non-traditional teacher was seldom portrayed, but when the portrayal was presented, the teacher was shown to be a valued and well liked. They contend that the reality of teaching is far too complex to fall into two such simple categories; that the act of teaching is complex. They point out that the authors of childrens books often negate this complexity of teaching and learning, and classify teachers as those who care about students and those who are rigid or less sensitive to students needs (p. 260). Their study led to several disturbing conclusions: (a) The ubiquitous portrayal of traditional teachers as mean and strict make schools and Teacher Images in Childrens Picture Storybooks/ 45 schooling appear to be a dreadful experience, (b) The portrayal of teachers is frequently one in which the teacher is shown as having less intelligence than the students have, (c) Teachers are portrayed as having little or no confidence in their students and their abilities. Weber and Mitchell (1995) assert that the stereotypes that are prevalent in the popular culture and experience of childhood play a formative role in the evolution of a teachers identity and are part of the enculturation of teachers into their profession (p. 27). Joseph and Bumaford (1994) address the numerous examples of caricatures or stereotypes as being somewhat different, but all are negative and all reduce the teacher to an object of scorn, disrespect, and sometimes fear (p. 15). What Research Framework Guided Our Study? To answer our questions concerning the elements of the childrens texts, we required a methodological framework from which we could examine the character of the texts. We found that framework in accessing research theories from anthropology and literary criticism which suggested an appropriate approach to content analysis. Submitting that all research directly or indirectly involves participant observation, David Altheide (1987) finds an ethnographic approach applicable to content analyses, in that the writings or electronic texts are ultimately products of social interaction. Ethnographic content analysis (ECA) requires a reflexive and highly interactive relationship between researcher and data with the objective of interpreting and verifying the communication of meaning. The meaning in the text message is assumed to be reflected in the multiple elements of form, content, context, and other nuances. The movement between researcher and data throughout the process of concept development, sampling, data collection, data analysis, and interpretation is systematic but not rigid, initially structured but receptive to emerging categories and concepts. As we proceeded through the multiple readings of the picture storybooks, we attempted to foreground three main concept: (a) To attempt to discover meaning is an attempt to include the multiple elements which make up the whole: appearance, language, subject taught, gender issues, racial/ethnic diversity, and other nuances as they became apparent; (b) The multiple readings of the selected sample of childrens literature to understand, and to interpret the structures of the texts are not to conform the texts to our analytic notions but to inform them; and (c) In the intimacy of our relationship with the data we are acting on them and changing them, just as the data are changing us and the way we perceive past and present texts. As we encountered new texts, we attempted to consistently return to previous texts and to be receptive to new or revised interpretations that were revealed. What Was Our Research Methodology? We used Follett Library Resources database to find titles addressing teachers and schools. This resulted in a list of 62 titles and 96 teacher images published from 1965 to present (Appendix A). No 46 / Education Vol. 125 No. 1 chapter books or Magic Schoolbus series books were reviewed, as they did not qualify under the definition of picture storybook (Huck, 1997, p. 198). We specifically did not attend to publication dates or in print/out of print status, as many of these texts appear on school and public library shelves decades after they have gone out of print. Our approach provided us with the majority of childrens picture storybooks available for purchase in the United States for purchase or available through public libraries. To better guide our examinations about the images of teachers, ensure that we reviewed the titles consistently, and in order to record the details of the texts we reviewed, we noted details of each teacher representation in aspects of Appearance, Language, Subject, Approach, and Effectiveness. The specific details we were seeking under each category for each teacher represented in the sample literature are further described below: Appearance: observable race, gender, approximate age, name, clothing, hairstyle, weight (thin, average, plump) Language: representative utterances by the teacher represented in the book or as reported by the narrator of the book Subject: the school subject(s) that the teacher was represented as teaching: reading/language arts, math, geography, history, etc. Approach: any indicators of a teaching philosophy, including whether children were seated in rows, were working together in learning centers, were reciting memorized material, whether the teacher was shown lecturing, etc. Effectiveness: indicators included narrators point of view, images or language about childrens learning from that teacher; images or language about childrens emotional response to the teacher, etc. We also attempted to note the absence of data as well as the presence of data. For example, we noted the occurrences of a teacher remaining nameless through the book, of a teacher not being represented as teaching any curriculum, or of a teacher failing to inspire any critical thinking in her students. We entered data in the foregoing categories about each teacher representation onto forms, which we then reviewed in order to group the individually represented teachers into four more specific categories: positive representations, negative representations, mixed review, and neutral. A teacher fitting into the category of positive teacher was represented as being sensitive to childrens emotional needs, supportive of meaningful learning, compassionate, warm, approachable, able to exercise classroom management skills without resorting to punitive measures or yelling, and was respectful and protective of children. A teacher would be classified as a negative teacher if he or she were represented as dictatorial, using harsh language, unable to manage classroom behavior, distant or removed, inattentive. Teacher Images in Childrens Picture Storybooks/ 47 unable to create a learning environment, allowing teasing or taunting among students, or unempathetic to students diverse backgrounds. A teacher was categorized as mixed reviewif they possessed characteristics that were both positive and negative: for example, if a teacher were otherwise represented as caring and effective in the classroom, but did nothing to halt the teasing of a child. The fourth category for consideration was that of neutral, in which a teacher was represented in the illustration of a text, but had neither a positive nor a negative effect on the children. A doctoral student focusing on reading in the elementary school and who is well-versed in childrens literature served as an inter-rater for this part of the analysis. After having conferred on the characteristics of each category, she read each text independently of the researchers and categorized each teacher as positive, negative, mixed review, and neutral. We achieved 100% agreement in the category of positive representations of teachers and 93% agreement regarding the negative images. We had 75% agreement on the neutral images and 100% agreement on the category of mixed images (two images). Upon further discussion of our qualifications for neutral, we were able to agree on all 14 images as having neither a positive nor negative impact on the children as represented in the text. What Were The Findings? Our findings regarding the preponderance of the images are detailed in the following paragraphs. The teacher in childrens picture storybooks is overwhelmingly portrayed as a white, non-Hispanic woman. There were only eight representations of African- American teachers, and only three of them were the protagonists of the books: The Best Teacher in the World, (Chardiet & Maccarone, 1990); Show and Tell, (Munsch, 1991); and Will I Have a Friend?, (Cohen, 1967). Two Asians, no Native Americans, and no other persons of color are shown in the 96 teacher images, making the total number of culturally diverse images represented at only 11 % of the total. The teacher in picture storybooks who is sensitive, competent, and able to manage a classroom effectively is a minority. The teacher who met the standards we described for a positive teacher, which include an ability to construct meaningful learning environments, compassion, respect, and management skills for a group of children, exists in only 42% of the teacher images in our sample. This means only 40 images out of a total 96 images were demonstrative of teacher efficacy. Some examples of the positive teacherare found in Mr. Slingerland in Lillys Purple Plastic Purse (Henkes, 1996), Mr. Falker in Thank You, Mr. Falker (Polacco, 1998), and Arizona Hughes in My Great-aunt Arizona (Houston, 1992). The negative images outnumbered the positive images. Teachers who were dictatorial, used harsh language with children were distant or removed, or allowed teasing among students comprised 42% of the total number of 96 teacher representations. Examples of the negative teacher are found in the nameless teacher in John Patrick Norman McHennessy-The 48 / Education Vol. 125 No. 1 Boy Who Was Always Late (Bumingham, 1987), Miss Tyler in Today Was a Terrible Day (Giff, 1980), and Miss Landers in The Art Lesson (dePaola, 1989). There were only two teachers in the sample who received a mixed review, which was by definition a generally positive teacher with some negative strategies, approaches, or statements (Mrs. Chud in Chrysanthemum [Henkes, 1991] and Mrs. Page in Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster [Frasier, 2000]). Fourteen teacher images, or 15% of the total number, were represented as neutral, meaning that the teacher in the text had neither a positive nor a negative impact on the students. The nameless teachers in Oliver Button is a Sissy (de Paola, 1979) and Amazing Grace (Hoffman, 1991) are representative of neutral teacher images. The teacher in childrens picture storybooks is static, unchanging, and flat. An unexpected finding in this content analysis was that teachers in picture storybooks are never shown as learners themselves, never portrayed as moving from less effective to more effective. Like the nameless teacher in Miriam Cohens Welcome to First Grade! series, if she is a paragon of kindness and patience, she will remain so unfailingly from the beginning of the text to its conclusion. If he is an incompetent novice, like Mr. Lemonjello in Miss Malarkey Wont Be in Today (Finchler, 1998), he will not be shown reflecting, learning, and reinventing himself into an informed and effective educator by books end. Perhaps the evolution from mediocrity to effectiveness holds little in the way of entertainment value, but it could hold great value in the demonstration that teachers are complex human beings with a significant capacity for growth. The potential to paint realistic portraits of teachers is present, but we see little evidence of the mediums desire to construct such an image. The teacher in childrens picture books is polarized. Other researchers have also noted our concerns that we as teach- . ers represented in picture storybooks are healers or wounders . . . sensitive or callous, imaginative or repressive (Joseph & Burnaford, 1994, p. 12). Only 15% of the teachers presented in our sample are neutral images, neither positively nor negatively impacting the children in the fictional classroom, and only two images out of the 96 examined qualified as a mixed review of mostly positive characteristics with some negative aspects of educational practice. Therefore, approximately 84% of the teachers represented in our sample are either very good or horrid. The teacher paragon in picture books generally is a woman who never demonstrates the features of commonplace motherhood?impatience, frustration, or possibly interests in the world other than children themselves-demonstrates to children that the teacher is a wonderfully benign creature (Joseph & Burnaford, 1994, p. 11). Ms. Darcy in The Best Teacher in the Whole World (Chardiet & Maccarone, 1990), and Mrs. Beejorgenhoosen in Rachel Parker, Kindergarten Show-off (M&nin, 1992) fit neatly into the mold of paragon. They are not represented exhibiting any less-than-perfect, but realistic, characteristics of exhaustion, short-temperedness, or lapses in good judgment Teacher Images in Childrens Picture Storybooks/ 49 Several texts offer over the top representations of bad teachers. The oftenreviewed Black Lagoon series depicts the teachers in childrens imaginations as a fire-breathing dragons or huge, green gorillas. The well-known Miss Nelson series (AUard) has created substitute teacher Viola Swamp in the likeness of a witch, complete with incredible bulk, large features, warts, and a perpetual bad hair day. The teachers in The Big Box, (Morrison, 1999), put a child who just cant handle her freedom in a big, brown box. Other books offer slightly more subtle, but still alarming, representations of negative teaching practice. Consider Miss Tyler, the heavy-lidded, unsmiling teacher in Today Was a Terrible Day (Giff, 1980), who humiliates Ronald five times in the course of the story; or Mrs. Bell, who in Double Trouble in Walla Walla (Clements, 1997), takes a child to the principal for her unique language style. Even worse is the nameless teacher who repeatedly (and falsely) accuses a student of lying and threatens to strike him with a stick {John Patrick Norman McHennessey-The Boy Who Was Always Late, Bvxmn^dsa., 1987). In less drastic representations, but still of concern to those of us who believe that literature informs expectations about reality, teachers are represented as failing to protect children from their peers taunts. Teachers are shown doing nothing to stop the teasing of children in Chrysanthemum (Henkes, 1991), The Brand New Kid (Couric, 2000), Today Was a Terrible Day (Giff, 1980), and Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster (Frasier, 2000). If children are learning about teachers and school from the childrens books read to them, we propose that there is cause for concern about the unrealistic expectations children could develop from such polarized and unrealistic images. The teacher in childrens picture books does not inspire in his or her students the pursuit of critical inquiry. The overwhelming majority of texts which represent teachers in a positive light ? and these number in our sample only 42% of the total number of school-related childrens literature ? show them as kind caregivers who dry tears (Miss Hart in Ruby the Copycat, Rathmann, 1991), resolve jealousy between children (Mrs. Beejorgenhoosen in Rachel Parker, Kindergarten Show-off, Martin, 1992), restore selfesteem (Mrs. Twinkle in Chrysanthemum, Henkes, 1991), teach right from wrong (Ms. Darcy in The Best Teacher in the Whole World, Chardiet & Maccarone, 1990). However, few teachers are represented as having a substantial impact on a childs learning. Joseph and Burnaford (1994) found that teachers are not seen leading students toward intellectual pursuits ? toward analyzing and challenging existing conditions of community and society. The ?successful teacher [in childrens literature] does not awaken students intelligence. Such teachers value order; order is what they strive for, what they are paid for (p. 16). Our analysis confirms their findings. Examples are common in which teachers actually provide roadblocks to childrens success. Tommy in The Art Lesson (dePaola, 1989) must wage battle to use his own crayons, use more than just one sheet of paper, and to create art based on his own vision and not the tired model of 50 / Education Vol. 125 No. 1 the art teacher. Miss Kincaid in The Brand New Kid (Couric, 2000) actually establishes the opportunity for children to tease the new boy who is an immigrant: We have a new student. . . His name is a different one, Lazlo S. Gasky. Young Lazlos mother must help him find his way into the culture of the school and community. In David Goes to School (Shannon, 1999), young David is met with negatively framed demands from his nameless and faceless teacher: No, David!, Youre tardy!, Keep your hands to yourself!, Shhhhh!, and Youre staying after school! Only six books in our sample represent teachers as intellectually inspiring. Mr. Isobe in Crow Boy (Yashima, 1967) is represented as child-centered and appreciative of Chibis knowledge of agriculture and botany, who values his drawings and stays after school to talk with young Chibi. He is represented as the catalyst for the crow imitations at the school talent show which gain Chibi recognition and a newfound respect among his peers. In Lillys Purple Plastic Purse (Henkes, 1996) Mr. Slingerland is such an effective teacher that he inspires Lilly to want to be a teacher (when she isnt wanting to be a dancer or a surgeon or an ambulance driver or a diva . . .). Mr. Cohen in Creativity, (Steptoe, 1997), uses the arrival of a new immigrant in his class to teach about the history of immigration in this country and to deliver a message about tolerance and shared histories. Mrs. Hughes in My Great-aunt Arizona (Houston, 1992) teaches generations of children about words and numbers and the far away places they would visit someday. The nameless teacher in When Will I Read? (Cohen, 1977) helps young Jim come to the realization that he is a reader, and Mr. Falker in Thank You, Mr. Falker (Polacco, 1998), helps fifth-grader Trisha learn to read in three months and cries over her achievement when she reads her first book independently. Although these are excellent examples of how teachers can be represented as dedicated supporters of learning, only six texts out of the 62 in our sample construct images of teacher as an educated professional. Discussion Other researchers have found bias, prejudice, and stereotypical presentations of characters in childrens books, and our study specifically about images of teachers does not dispute those findings (Barone, Meyerson, & Mallette, 1995; Hurley & Chadwick, 1998; Hurst, 1981). From our extensive 62 book sample of picture storybooks widely available to children, parents, and teachers, we have found a parade of teachers who discourage creativity, ignore teasing, and even threaten to hit children with sticks. We have also found teachers in childrens literature who, in great devotion to the human good and the educative process, save children: from boredom, from illiteracy, and from the devastating effects of social isolation. Our deep concern is that the books in which the teacher is demonstrated as intelligent and inspiring (six in our 62 book sample) are dwarfed by the number of books in which the image of Teacher is one of daft incompetence, unreasonable anger, or rigid conformity. We do not find images of teachers as transformative intellectuals, as educators Teacher Images in Childrens Picture Storybooks/ 51 who go beyond concern with forms of empowerment that promote individ
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