1. Nationalism in Children's Literature
- Author
-
Helen Martin
- Subjects
Pride ,education.field_of_study ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Population ,Gender studies ,Sociology ,Library and Information Sciences ,education ,Solidarity ,Stock (geology) ,media_common ,Nationalism - Abstract
N ~ !ATIONALISM is herein taken to mean the mass demand to be or to remain a state having equal status with other states.2 Most governments are continually seeking to increase this demand. The methods they employ may be classed as direct and indirect. The indirect methods include the encouragement of national sports and domestic travel. The direct methods include the use of such mediums as publications, oratory, motion pictures, and radio. In what follows we are concerned with publications, and especially with children's literature, as a vehicle for nationalist influence. Scientific analyses of nationalism began with the post-war studies of Hayes, Johannet, Van Gennep, and others. In general, one can say that the effectiveness of any means of increasing national pride and solidarity is conditioned by the degree to which the population consists of the same racial stock. The nationalist uses of children's literature have only recently been noticed.3 The study herein reported is an attempt to describe the nationalist influence of each of twenty-four children's books representing seventeen different countries.4 The description is made as objective as possible by attention to the relative number of
- Published
- 1936