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European Early Childhood Education Research Journal
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/recr20
Challenging gender stereotypes through a
transformation of a fairy tale
Aud Torill Meland
To cite this article: Aud Torill Meland (2020): Challenging gender stereotypes through a
transformation of a fairy tale, European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, DOI:
10.1080/1350293X.2020.1836589
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2020.1836589
Published online: 22 Oct 2020.
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Challenging gender stereotypes through a transformation of
a fairy tale
Aud Torill Meland
Faculty of Arts and Education, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to explore ECEC-teachers’attitudes toward
gender through a transformation of the classic fairy tale ‘The
Princesses and The Pea’. The stereotypes presented in fairy tales
can be limiting for children today because they can reinforce
traditional ideals of femininity and masculinity. The Norwegian
ensemble Dybwikdans challenge gender stereotypes in ‘The
Princess and The Pea’. In the performance, the princess acts
strong and brave, the king feminine and vain. Findings that are
based on interviews indicate that the teachers are not concerned
with gender stereotypes in fairy tales; they have a set of
stereotyped expectations about how females and males are
portrayed, but a transformation of an old story provides an
opportunity to explore and challenge traditional gender roles.
KEYWORDS
Fairy tales; gender
stereotypes; qualitative
studies; transformation;
ECEC-teachers
Introduction
Fairy tales have been passed on verbally from one generation to another, long before they
were written down and commercialised by the likes of Disney. The importance of fairy
tales is reflected in the Norwegian national framework plan for ECED-institutions (Nor-
wegian Directorate for Education and Training 2017). The framework plan emphasises
that fairy tales are an essential part of Norwegian culture and should not be erased
from children’s lives. Furthermore, the plan (2017) underlines that kindergartens shall
help children discover a variety of fairy tales. Fairy tales are one of the finest cultural her-
itages; they show where the roots of a culture lie and form part of a country’s identity
(Mjør, Birkeland, and Risa 2000). In spite of this, fairy tales have some features that
parents, and teachers should be aware of. Fairy tales and the commercialised films
from Disney act as a socialising agent for gender role development (Signorielli 2011).
In fairy tales, children meet stereotypes that provide narrow expectations of women’s
and men’s behaviour. In Norway, ECEC-stafftend to support traditional gender role
models and hold gender-stereotyped views of children (Østrem et al. document, 2009;
Meland and Kaltvedt 2017). Overall, there is little awareness of perceptions of gender
stereotyping in Norwegian ECEC-institutions (Aune 2013).
An analysis of gender in fairy tales is not a new endeavour (Zipes 1987;2012; England,
Descartes, and Collier-Meek 2011; Heerspink 2012). Over many decades, scholars have
© 2020 EECERA
CONTACT Aud Torill Meland aud.t.meland@uis.no
EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL
https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2020.1836589
tried to identify gender stereotypes, gendered content and any potential harm this could
cause to children (Liebermann 1972; Yolen 1977; Nanda 2014). Others have drawn atten-
tion to how gender in fairy tales is misunderstood (Johnson-Olin 2016). In this article, I
will try to elucidate how a dance performance can challenge gender stereotypes in a fairy
tale. I think there is still a pressing need to examine the use of fairy tales in ECEC-insti-
tutions, particularly as a tool to focus on gender stereotypes. The overall purpose of this
study is to explore how a transformation of the fairy tale ‘The Princess and The Pea’can
challenge gender stereotypes and open up ECEC-teachers’reflections on gender.
Theoretical background
One of the leading experts on fairy tales, Jack Zipes (1987,2012) argues that the first fairy
tales were transmitted orally and that it is impossible to trace their historical origins.
Nevertheless, what can be traced back to Charles Perrault in the seventeenth century
is the foundation of fairy tales as a new literary genre. According to Zipes (2012),
humans used fairy tales to promote knowledge and experience as a way to teach
others how to adapt to their surroundings and society. Fairy tales are moralising and
mythical stories that serve to indoctrinate practices, rituals and events in listeners. Vis-
ikoKnox-Johnson (2016) remarks that children can benefit greatly from exposure to
fairy tales because they learn to deal with conflict, relationships, and desires. Thus,
they are significant for the development of morals and consciousness.
There seems to be an agreement among many scholars that fairy tales provide children
important messages about gender roles (Liebermann 1972; Baker-Sperry and Grauerholz
2003; England, Descartes, and Collier-Meek 2011). Even though these messages are out-
dated, fairy tales continue to endure and play a key role in reproducing gender stereo-
types. Children as young as three can identify themselves as either a boy or a girl and
start to evaluate certain qualities and characteristics in a stereotyped way (Freeman
2007; Martin and Ruble 2009). Between five –and six-years children have the most
rigid gender stereotypes (Trautner et al. 2005). Teachers must be aware of how early chil-
dren begin to learn how to ‘do’gender. During kindergarten, children will be influenced
by what they hear and see and develop knowledge about gender roles. Zipes (1987,3)
claims that children’s perception and embrace of gender roles can have an impact on
their formation. He claims that children are ‘conditioned to assume and accept arbitrary
sex roles’. These socially conditioned roles are intended to ‘prepare females to become
passive self-denying, obedient, and self-sacrificial (…)’, whereas males are prepared to
‘become competitive, authoritarian, and power-hungry as well as rational, abstract,
and principled’. Fairy tales play a powerful role in shaping children’s perspectives
about themselves and reinforce traditional stereotypical behaviour (Davies 2003). Heer-
spink (2012) asserts that fairy tales invoke a traditional gender paradigm, which means
females and males are portrayed in a gender-typed manner. Gender roles are usually rep-
resented by a stereotypical man who is in the top position. These men are to a large extent
strong, dashing and fearless. In contrast to the brave males, females are portrayed as
expressive, incompetent or beautiful princesses (Liebermann 1972; Nanda 2014).
Beauty and vanity are the most valuable asset a female can possess (Liebermann 1972;
Baker-Sperry and Grauerholz 2003). Zipes (2012, 56) remarks that the mark of beauty
for females is to be found in her submission and obedience, whereas the mark of
2A. T. MELAND
manliness is to be found in a malès reason and self-control. The value of beauty allows for
the continuance of gender inequality, and the way fairy tales portray women is to blame.
Furthermore, the feminine beauty stereotypes have an impact on gender identity for-
mation in girls (Baker-Sperry and Grauerholz 2003). Lieberman states (1972) that fairy
tales create unwelcome female stereotypes and reproduce ideals of love and marriage.
She claims that the passive heroine has no ambitions beyond marriage and through
the lens of romance, ideas about gender roles are formed.
There is no doubt that there have been an increasing number of scholars who turned a
penetrating gaze on gender stereotypes in fairy tales (Liebermann 1972; Yolen 1977;
Zipes 1987; Davies 2003; Nanda 2014). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, critical views
led to new fairy tales being developed or old stories revamped with a new outlook.
The ideas behind the new fairy tales are reactions to traditional gender roles, and they
present a range of characters with reversed gender characteristics (Shanks 2008). This
implies that the male character supports stereotypical female behaviour and the female
protagonists show strength, wisdom and wit (Smith 2015). Such qualities are, for
example, expressed in the fairy tale about The Paper Bag Princess and Princess Smarty-
pants (Shanks 2008; Smith 2015; Pinar and Guijarro 2016). Both princesses are indepen-
dent characters who break the traditional gender ideal. However, images of proactive
female protagonists are not a new invention (Johnson-Olin 2016). Strong and powerful
girls or women have always been present in fairy tales. The problem is that female pro-
tagonists have been misunderstood, thus, to declare that all fairy tale women are submiss-
ive is completely wrong, states Johnson-Olin. Yolen (1977) pursues the same argument
when she proclaims that Cinderella has been transformed over centuries from an active
female agent in Perrault’s time into a submissive and obedient heroine. Johnson-Olin
(2016) suggests that one must move beyond the surface and try to understand the
story itself rather than just focus on stereotypes. By analysing fairy tales, she documents
that the female protagonists can be interpreted as strong heroines rather than helpless,
passive victims. Silence in women can be a sign of strength rather than limitation, and
lazy women, who are generally portrayed as evil and trying to take advantage of the
heroine, can be comprehended as smart and determined. The challenge is to look at
fairy tales as a tool for exploration rather than a limitation (Johnson-Olin 2016).
However, many studies show that children themselves can contribute to continuing
traditional gender patterns (Davies 2003; Meland and Kaltvedt 2017). Davies (2003)
found that children who were presented for fairy tales with different constructions of
gender not perceived as traditional, tended to assess a tough princess as weird and
manly. The children portrayed princesses as beautiful and kind, and besides having won-
derful hair and a smiling face, they are eager to get married. According to Davies, chil-
dren use their own everyday experiences and knowledge of other stories to make sense of
fairy tales. Paterson (2014), who has explored school children’s understanding of gender
roles, found that girls and boys stereotype each other’s trait attributions. By giving a
script of a boy to the girls and vice versa, the girls started to act like boys, and the
boys started to use feminine movements and incline their voices. Both genders ultimately
decided how the behaviour of a boy or a girl should look, and this was unchangeable. Still
the changing of roles led to an imbalance, especially for the boys, who had a greater
problem accepting girls in a boy’s part than did the girls. Paterson states that both
genders developed mind-sets of what each gender should be like. Attention needs to
EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL 3
be given to gender stereotyping in fairy tales, and in this article, I will do so by exploring
the following question: How can a transformation of the fairy tale ‘The Princess and The
Pea’challenge ECEC-teachers’understanding of gender stereotyping?
Method
The overall purpose of the study is how a transformation of a fairy tale ‘The Princess and
The Pea’may challenge ECEC-teachers’understanding of gender. The target market’s
age for the dance-performance is children between 3–5 years old. To collect data, the per-
formance was observed, and questions were formulated based on notes. Eight ECEC-tea-
chers who had attended the performance were interviewed. The teachers were all females
between 25–52 of age.
The study is based on semi-structured interviews; thus, a strictly formalised list of
questions is not followed. The interview guide emphasises open-ended questions and
allows the teachers to reflect on different areas of awareness concerning gender issues,
such as how females and males are portrayed in fairy tales in general, and after the trans-
formation, what impact this challenge of gender stereotypes in fairy tales may have had,
etc. These areas made it possible to have a deeper discussion about gender in fairy tales
and the transformation of ‘The Princess and The Pea’in particular. The interviews took
place after the dance-performance, and the teachers were encouraged to speak freely
about their experiences.
Analysis
The data was analysed using a single method derived from Kvale (2006) called conden-
sation of meaning, which means that the text was shortened to more concise formu-
lations. The transcriptions are read repeatedly in order to receive an overall
impression and understanding of the teachers’statements, and summaries of the descrip-
tions are formulated. This general analysis is followed by identifying common features
for all teachers; a second purpose was to identify perceptions and experiences of
genders specific to transformation of ‘The Princess and The Pea’. The interviews are ana-
lysed in different phases. Each phase involves an increased distance from the materials
and a more conscious reflection. After reading through the interviews, they are struc-
tured into categories based on the descriptions, which are highlighted as follows: ‘aware-
ness of stereotypes’‘archetypal characters’‘appearance and traits’,‘promote critical
thinking’. Categorisation of the categories contribute to making the material clearer
while at the same time regarding the interpretations more critically.
Ethical rules for research were followed according to the Norwegian Centre for
Research Data (2019). All the participants received oral information about the project
and every interview started with description of the purpose of the study. One ethical
dilemma associated with using the data material is that the interviews are collected
and transcribed by a colleague. Interpreting the actions and language described by
others is problematic because I have not been part of the interview and transcriptions
process. The data material is influenced by the interviewer’s knowledge and ability to per-
ceive the complete picture, and when the interviewer and transcriber are the same
person, this means that transcription is consistent with that person’s own language
4A. T. MELAND
knowledge. Tilley (2003) claims that this can involve bias that may affect the analysis of
the findings. However, I have tried to avoid bias by involving the interviewer in the
process of analysis. My interpretations were cross-checked and challenged by the inter-
viewer, and this has aided my interpretations and re-interpretations of the data material.
Results
Background
‘The Princess and The Pea’by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen was originally
published in 1835. The story is about a suspicious prince trying to find a real princess to
marry. One night a woman seeks shelter in his castle and claims to be a princess. A sus-
picious queen mother decides to test the so-called princess by placing a pea in the bed
covered by huge mattresses and feather beds. The following morning, the woman tells
the hosts that she has had a sleepless night, due to something hard in her bed. The
prince knew then that he had found a true and real princess. The story ends with the
prince’s decision to marry the princess. A Norwegian dance company ‘Dybwikdans’
has created a new version with the intention of challenging preconceived gender roles.
The content is in line with the original story, but Dybwik has put in a new twist by chan-
ging the gender roles with a gender swap. In Dybwik’s version the princess is not a beau-
tiful, passive, and superficial figure with elegant dresses; instead, the princess appears as a
self-determining, independent and active person. Her clothes are casual: grey trousers,
yellow t-shirt and flat shoes; her hair is short and dark. When she moves, her movements
are rough and tough; she jumps, runs and uses her muscular arms to express physical
strength. A clear and strong voice embodied the masculinity in her dance-performance,
and she makes funny facial expressions at the audience. The king, on the other hand, is
dressed in white trousers, a blouse of lace and a long red jacket, the shoes are flashing in
pink. The feminine within his body is expressed in drives; his dance-movements are
limited and damped, and his voice is soft and fragile.
No reflections on gender
The data material shows that none of the teachers had spent time discussing or reflecting
on gender stereotypes in order to raise awareness of gender among the children. Since the
children are quite familiar with and able to anticipate the ‘The Princess and The Pea’, the
teachers only chose to read the story aloud without any reflections concerning gender
stereotypes. Furthermore, none of the teachers exhibited awareness of pre-established
gender expectations in the story.
‘We read it, but the children said ‘We have heard it many times’. They knew the fairy tale
beforehand’. Teacher Anne.
‘We did not spend much time on the fairy tale because the children were familiar with the
story, so we only read it once’. Teacher Brit.
The majority of the teachers pointed out that the children have clear images of what prin-
cesses look like. According to the teachers, the children are occupied with the princess’s
physical appearance such as elegant dresses and good looks. Furthermore, the teachers
EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL 5
highlight that fairy tales portray princesses as weak, self-centred and selfish; a princess
thinks of the world as hers, and she acts as though she expects to be pleased and pam-
pered. From the teachers’responses, children form such a mind-set due to how
Disney and a whole set of fairy tale books portray princesses.
‘In fairy tales princesses have quite typical traits. The children are familiar with princesses in
stunning dresses. They are influenced by how Disney portrayed the princesses. When we
read fairy tales and look at the illustrations, they always picture a beautiful princess and a
tough and brave prince who acts upon the princess and has the power in the relationship!’
Teacher Dina.
‘The princess is a bit like …well a princess is often a weak and helpless person, but she is
very demanding, and used to getting what she wants. She is often unreasonable and
without power, while the prince is strong and tough who always saves the princess.’
Teacher Carina.
As demonstrated above, the teachers have strong expectations of gender roles, and there
is a link between physical and personality traits. Physical strength, toughness and hand-
someness embody the male characters. The female characters, on the other hand, are
physically weak, fragile and beautiful. These stereotypical thoughts on physical traits
are mentioned before any personality traits. From the teachers’response, there is a
lack of independence attributed to femininity; the princesses are helpless and in need
of saving. Princesses’inner fire is driven by vanity and egoism rather than the toughness,
braveness and power of kings.
The Dybwikdans challenges gender stereotypes
The data material shows that Dybwikdans’s portrayal of gender roles had an unexpected
twist for the teachers as well as the children. The fact that the princess is wearing trousers
and not a dress is highlighted. The king’s outfits, especially his pink flashing shoes and
garments, are surprising and unexpected. According to the teachers, neither the princess
nor the king fits with traditional fairy tale portrayals.
‘She did not look like a princess at all or how princesses are supposed to look. The princesses
are supposed to wear beautiful dresses …We all got very surprised when we saw the princess
in the play, she was tough!’Teacher Dina.
‘I got surprised, how she looked, she was not wearing a dress, but tough pants’. Teacher
Anne.
‘The children said: ‘Was she a princess? She did not have a dress!’’ Teacher Hanna.
‘She did not look like a princess or how the children imagine how princesses look or should
be, her hair style, short hair, that was surprising’. Teacher Dina.
‘Flashing shoes on a king!’Teacher Brit.
‘That the king was wearing pink and red, it was weird!’Teacher Carina.
‘And then it was the king, he was so cute’. Teacher Eva.
Strong expectations of gender roles are expressed by the teachers in these quotations. It
was not only the clothing and outfits that caused astonishment, as highlighted by the
6A. T. MELAND
teachers; the way the princess and the king behaved and chose to express themselves was
also surprising. It is interesting to note the teachers’fixation on the princess’s behaviour
and manners, which they perceive as unexpected and confusing. The princess’s move-
ments, her physical strength and activity, her loudness, and facial expressions and lack
of silence take teachers by surprise. There are several examples that illustrate this:
‘All of these loud sounds and expressions from the princess, I was very surprised’. Teacher
Carina.
‘The children found her really rough, she did not look like a princess at all, and she danced
and made faces and was really a tough girl.’Teacher Dina.
‘It was a completely different princess from the one we know from the fairy tale. The sounds
and the movement. How she danced and her rough way of acting. It was very surprising.’
Teacher Brit.
‘The way she moved in the dance, was rough.’Teacher Hanna.
It is interesting to note that the king’s character is established in the background, but his
dancing and singing captures the teachers’attention as well. A dancing king does not
seem to be in accordance with the tough, adventurous and heroic fairy tale character.
According to the teachers, the king looked weird and strange.
‘That the king was dancing, was not expected. We did not expect this to happen. The king
did not act as a determined decision maker in that performance.’Teacher Gry.
‘The king was so cute, he danced. He was not tough at all.’Teacher Eva.
‘A dancing king was not what we had expected at all, he certainly did not act determined.’
Teacher Anne.
As one can observe from the quotations below, Dybwik’s break with the traditional fairy
tale seems to challenge preconceived opinion about genders, and the statements serve to
create a shared understanding of the meaning of gender roles.
‘I think it took the children by surprise. We read the fairy tale beforehand, but this perform-
ance was completely new and different. So, I guess, they were surprised at how the princess
and the king were portrayed.’Teacher Anne.
‘The children were very surprised; they have talked and are still talking about the perform-
ance they have attended’. Teacher Sofie.
‘The children were enthusiastic because the fairy tale was not what we or they had imagined.
The fairy tale was different from the original. The princess and the king became new char-
acters’. Teacher Hanna.
The Dybwik’s version of ‘The Princess and The Pea’seems to challenge teachers’notion
of how genders are portrayed in fairy tales. They highlight that they have become more
aware of the subtle and hidden messages that fairy tales convey and that this has raised
new perspectives on gender more attuned to modern society.
‘Thinking outside the box is great. We are so hung up in these traditional fairy tales and we
are introduced to them from an early age. After all, they are very old stories and can be limit-
ing for children of today. But we can try to …well it is possible to change them in our way,
what we want them to be or what we want to convey. The rules of the fairy tales can be
EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL 7
changed, but the fact that the princess and the king were different from the original story
was exciting. A fairy tale is not just a fairy tale, it is flexible and not fixed, it is possible to
rethink and challenge stereotypes that are no longer consistent with today’s girls and
boys.’Teacher Carina.
‘This was a completely different way of telling a fairy tale. The princess or the king were …
well, not quite as we imagined. I will challenge gender stereotypes from now on.’Teacher
Eva.
‘How we thought about fairy tales in the first place and how gender roles are represented in
fairy tales. We have to help children rethink and to promote critical thinking in an effort to
combat gender stereotypes. A princess or a prince does not need to be the way they are por-
trayed in the fairy tales.’Teacher Sofie.
Discussion and conclusion
In the present study, I investigate how a transformation of the fairy tale ‘The Princess and
The Pea’can challenge ECEC-teachers’understanding of gender stereotyping. The
Dybwik’s rewriting of the fairy tale ‘The Princess and The Pea’is consistent with H.C
Andersen’s original story from the 1830s in many ways, but the incongruity plays an
essential role in the Dybwik´s version. Dybwik takes it for granted that the audience
has knowledge about the gender roles present in fairy tales, and this prerequisite knowl-
edge is necessary to appreciate the incongruity in the story. There is no doubt that
Dybwik´s rendition is inspired by Princess Smartypants and others unconventional
fairy tales. Shanks (2008) remarks that the story of Smartypants defies traditional
gender roles and break with stereotypes by turning the protagonist into new character.
Pinar and Guijarro (2016) claim that the visual expression of a princess informs
whether she is a traditional princess or not. There is no emblem with Smartypants
that shows she is a princess apart from a little crown on her head; other visual additions
are humour and irony between the text and the pictures (Pinar and Guijarro 2016). The
transformation of ‘The Princess and The Pea’has some of the same elements. As in Smar-
typants, there is no visual expression of the princess that shows she is a princess. The only
symbol of royalty in the story is a huge crown on the king
s head. Dybwik adds a humor-
ous and ironic element to the story by concentrating on the princess’s clothes, the trans-
formative power of her dance and the funny faces she makes. The king in his lace, pink
shoes and outsized crown also adds a twist to the story. By doing this, Dybwik´s subverts
the traditional images of princesses and princes. Additionally, the protagonists in ‘The
Princess and The Pea’are gender-atypical characters where the king supports stereotypi-
cal female traits and the princess masculine. This transformation is used to challenge
gender roles (Nanda 2014; Smith 2015).
Based on the incongruities between HC Andersen’s original story and the Dybwik´s
version, it was expected that the teachers would have analytical and critical views on
gender stereotypes, but this is not the case. There is a lack of reflection, and no one
tries to give the children a more open mind perspective about how girls and boys are por-
trayed. This may indicate that gender roles in fairy tales are taken for granted (Pekşen,
2012). There is a consensus among scholars that fairy tales are a home for gender stereo-
types (Liebermann 1972; Nanda 2014; Smith 2015), and this is confirmed by the teachers.
The study reveals that teachers have stereotypical expectations of gender roles. They
8A. T. MELAND
describe princesses and princes as archetypically stereotyped characters, where
expressions like ‘beautiful’,‘weak’,‘smart’and ‘strong’are used. The feminine beauty
stereotype appears several times and seems to be the key factor of gender stereotypes,
which is consistent with previous research (Liebermann 1972; Baker-Sperry and Grauer-
holz 2003; Nanda 2014). Apart from being beautiful, the teachers linked the princess’s
identity to passivity and selfishness, and the prince’s identity with action and bravery.
By doing this, the teachers make a stereotypical gender distinction. However, these
findings are not surprising, and many researchers have shown that stereotypical attitudes
towards girls and boys contribute to upholding traditional gender patterns (Chick,
Heilman-House, and Hunter 2002; Davies 2003; Meland and Kaltvedt 2017). Meland
and Kaltvedt (2017) show how gender roles manifest themselves in Norwegian ECEC-
institutions, and their findings corroborate the results from Davies (2003). Meland
and Kaltvedt document that kindergarten stafftreats girls and boys differently. Gender
stereotyping conceptions are transferred to children by praising girls as cute; they are
referred to as little princesses, whereas the boys are affirmed with strength and physical
characteristics. According to Davies (2003), fairy tales help to perpetuate such gender
stereotypes and thus reinforce traditional gender patterns.
Rather than applauding the unexpected, the teachers make a fuss about how the prin-
cess and the king appear. Despite Dybwik having reversed the perceived definition of
masculine and feminine and challenged prevailing gender structures, the teachers’state-
ments show that appearance, clothes and colours contribute to emphasising gender. This
pattern provides support for other researchers’conclusions. Many studies have
confirmed that colours and appearance are gender-stereotyped and considered to be fem-
inine and masculine (Davies 2003: Meland and Kaltvedt 2017; Ishii, Numazaki, and
Tado’oka 2019). This is also expressed when the teachers point out that the way the
king dances is unexpected, as they associate dancing with feminine activities. The
king’s dance seems to challenge a masculine ideal, and this finding may support other
studies that illuminate dancing as a female art form and gender-appropriate activity,
which girls from early an age are encouraged to pursue and boys largely try to avoid
(Holdsworth, 2013; Ishii, Numazaki, and Tado’oka 2019).
The results show that the protagonists in Dybwik´s story challenge gender stereotypes.
According to the teachers, the children’s reactions to the princess and the king are over-
whelming. The teachers point out that the children’s gender-stereotypical behaviour has
been lower since attending the show, as they became preoccupied with the story and
played the protagonist a long time after. This result is not consistent with a study
done by Rice (cited in Pekşen, 2012). Rice found that school children did not respond
to non-traditional characters in retelling a story, but they depicted the protagonists
from their own perceptions of maleness or femaleness.
However, the results show that the incongruities between fairy tales and the exaptation
set up by Dywik´s version have contributed to a higher consciousness of stereotypes. The
teachers acknowledge that children should be exposed to non-traditional fairy-tales due
to their need for new models with more diversity than the traditional one-sided ambi-
tious princesses and fearless princes. Scholars claim that exposing children to gender-aty-
pical characters and behaviour may have an impact on immediate and future play
behaviour, even in children with the most stereotypical play behaviour. Girls’stereotypi-
cal behaviour can be especially altered when they are exposed to gender-atypical
EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL 9
storybooks (Green, Bigler, and Catherwood 2004). Exposing children to fairy tales with
gender-atypical characters is significant because gender patterns are established very
early in a child’s life.Even though a fairy tale like ‘The Princess and The Pea’can play
a powerful role in challenging children’s perspectives on stereotypes, teachers must
recognise that children are not able to think critically and reveal stereotypes by them-
selves. Additionally, teachers must help children to understand gender roles, stereotypes
and gender expression. When girls and boys attend ECEC, gender stereotypes in fairy
tales must be on the agenda. In addition, ECEC-staffneed to help the children to
compare the role of girls and boys in the fairy tales and the real.
world in which they live. This gives the staffand children opportunity to uncover
gender differences and discuss solutions on how they should be addressed.
The overall results show the stereotype expectations of gender roles expressed by
the teachers. These expectations are opposite to the requirements of gender equality
policy in Norway. ECEC-institutions are required by law to avoid gender stereotyping
(Lovedata 2014), but research shows that ECEC-staffsupport traditional gender role
models and pressure children to behave in ways that are deemed appropriate (Østrem
et al. 2009; Meland and Kaltvedt 2017). Traditional gender-stereotyped roles are
entrenched in Norwegian ECEC-institutions (Borg, Backe-Hansen, and Kristiansen
2008). Furthermore, stereotypes seem to be reflected in perceptions and expectations
of many ECEC-staffs and they show a considerable lack of awareness of stereotypical
attitudes towards gender roles. Aune (2013) reports that perceptions of gender stereo-
typing in Norwegian ECEC-institutions contribute to limiting children’s freedom to
make their own choices according to their interests and strengths, which can
influence future educational and career choices. To promote awareness of gender
in fairy tales can reduce the impact of traditional stereotypes. By conveying fairy
tales, teachers must challenge stereotypical princess and princes; they cannot ignore
the gender issues. Therefor, awareness and competency regarding gender roles and
stereotypes in fairy tales need to be addressed in both teachers’training and
ECEC-institutions.
Undoubtedly, the alternative presentation of ‘The Princess and The Pea’challenged
the stereotypical depictions of a fairy tale’s protagonist and has helped teachers to
raise their consciousness on gender stereotypes.
Limitations
This study has limitations that should be noted. The sample is based on a small group of
female teachers from eight different ECEC-institutions. I could have strengthened the
validity of the study if I had conducted the interviews and transcriptions and included
observations from ECEC-institutions. Descriptions of how the teachers handled the
fairy tale before seeing the Dwybik’s version and documenting the children’s reactions
before and after the performance, could have strengthened the data material. Obser-
vations would have made it possible to identify if the children had become more
aware of gender roles, whether this could be reflected in their play and conversations,
or whether the performance had any impact on the children’s behaviour. The study
does not include the choreographer’s ideas and considerations concerning the transform-
ation of ‘The Princess and The Pea’. An interview could reveal which considerations the
10 A. T. MELAND
choreographer has made. Note: I am aware that Disney has started to challenge and
subvert stereotypes in fairy tales, but I have chosen not to address this in the article.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to the editors and reviewers for their very helpful suggestions and recommendations,
and to associate professor Kirsten Halle for use of the data material.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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