Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Ageist and Sexist Double Jeopardy Portrayals in Children's Picture Books

Abstract

Bandura's Social Learning Theory purports that early exposure to this social information may have an impact on children's schema development (e.g., Bandura, 2001), which may influence how children and later adults think about what it means to age and get older (e.g., what it means to be an aging woman in society). By extension, if the portrayal of aging women characters in picture books contains both ageist and sexist attitudes, then the concern is that learned double jeopardy social schemas may influence both children's and the broader society's reactions to this aging sub-population (Chappell & Havens, 1980) and personal self-efficacy toward aging (Bandura, 2011). For the purpose of the current research, a possible double jeopardy portrayal was examined for older women characters in children's picture books. Using a stratified random sampling of 90 children's picture books, results found that older book characters were depicted in only about one-third of the sampled books, and older women portrayals were generally more negative (e.g., “hag”). The current study analyzed the biased aging portrayals in children's picture books, and found evidence for double jeopardy (e.g., both ageist and sexist attitudes combined) in how aging women characters were presented in both text and imagery. Implications toward future research and education interventions that convey more positive messages about aging and being a woman aging in society will be discussed.

Notes

Note. The total children's picture books representing the double jeopardy effect (n = 29). From the sample books identified as representing the double jeopardy (n = 29), the frequencies above represent the presence of stereotypical aging and gender portrayals across the four domains: social, physical, psychological, or any combination of the three.