Images of girls in educational comics in Thailand
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Abstract
The study on the images of girls in educational comics in Thailand aims to analyze the representations of female gender roles through the lens of sex–role theory, which roles are assigned to individuals on the basis of biological sex. Furthermore, this research seeks to investigate the portrayals of girls within the context of educational comic books by combining content analysis with visual methodology. Altogether 73 comic books of one issue named It Is Not Hard If You Want to were collected. These comic books were published by Nanmeebooks Company Limited, targeting at young individuals aged 9–18 years. The research reveals that female gender roles conform to social norms that reflect expectations for girls in both domestic and public spheres which are cooking and taking care of finances respectively. The paradigm of gender roles privileges positive attributes, especially being smart, confident, and successful. Through a textual analysis of female characters, girls are visually depicted and featured as daughters, sisters, students, and friends with negative images as passive, dependent, and incompetent but improvable after putting much effort and having received assistance from males and others. The educational comic books disclose a relationship connecting between content and gender.
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