Family life in children's books

Books play an important role in the socialization of children. In order to understand the images of families presented to children, a sample of best-selling and award-winning children's books was analyzed. Sixty-seven Caldecott and Newbery award winners were selected. Some diversity in family structure was presented in the books. However, none of the black families was a one-parent household, and the image of one-parent households was overwhelmingly negative. Family roles, including the division of household work and paid employment, were depicted traditionally. Presentations of the homemaker role and parent-child relationships are described.A version of this paper was presented at the Society for the Study of Social Problems annual meetings in Toronto, Canada, August, 1981. I wish to think William Aho, Pamela Irving Jackson, Rita Seiden Miller and Albert Ullman for helpful comments on earlier drafts.     

Violent comic books and judgments of relational aggression

This study investigated the effects of reading extremely violent versus mildly violent comic books on the interpretation of relational provocation situations. One hundred and seventeen introductory psychology students read either an extremely violent comic book or a mildly violent comic book. After reading the comic books, participants read five hypothetical stories in which a child, caused a relationally aggressive event to occur to another child, but the intent of the provocateur was ambiguous. After each story, participants were asked a series of questions about the provocateur's intent; potential retaliation toward the provocateur; and the provocateur's emotional state. Responses were coded in terms of amount of negative and violent content. Results indicated that participants reading the extremely violent comic books ascribed more hostile intent to the provocateur, suggested more retaliation toward the provocateur, and attributed a more negative emotional state to the provocateur than participants reading the mildly violent comic book. These data suggest that social information processing of relationally aggressive situations is influenced by violent comic books, even if the comic books do not contain themes of relational aggression.     

Trends in popular parenting books and the need for parental critical thinking

Parents continually struggle to find better ways to make decisions regarding their children, and many use popular parenting books. The purpose of this article is to discuss the critical thinking skills needed by parents and practitioners who work with parents to make informed parenting decisions influenced by popular media. It also addresses strategies on sleeping, cosleeping, feeding and toilet training in popular parenting books, and the corresponding empirical evidence found in the scientific literature.     

Gender role stereotypes in fine art: A content analysis of art history books

This paper reports findings from a content analysis of the gender role images in the works of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Modern art in three major Western art history textbooks. Males were overrepresented as subjects; males and females were presented in stereotypic roles and activities; the Madonna and the idle nude were common female images; males were overrepresented in portraits. Fine art as presented in major art history books was found to embody the gender role stereotypes of the wider society.     

Are sociologists’ publications uncited? Citation rates of journal articles,chapters, and books

Critics argue that few sociological publications are cited in the subsequent literature and that this implies many are superfluous. Data on the number of citations to three kinds of sociological documents—journal articles, chapters in edited books, and books—show that a substantial majority of each type is cited in the subsequent literature. Furthermore, the high proportions of ever-cited items do not result from authors’ citation of their own work. Average citation levels of journals are highly correlated with other measures of journal stature. The average book is cited about as often as an average article in a highly-cited journal, while an average chapter in an edited book is cited about as often as an average article in an infrequently-cited journal. Within-journal variation in article citation rates far exceeds between-journal variation.