To Analyse the Ratio of Masculine/Feminine Gendered Character Oriented or Neutral Themes of Picture Books in India

Youngsters' writing, particularly picture books in India, is one of the up and coming zones of research. India has a rich legacy of narrating custom both in the oral and composed structure. In any case, picture books for more youthful kids are relatively an ongoing idea in India. Characterising youngsters' writing at first appears to be straightforward, that is, writing for kids. It is a troublesome undertaking as one of the critical issues of characterising youngsters' writing is that grown-ups and kids' writing continually cover one another: different researchers and pundits, youngsters' writing in different manners. Diminish Hunt, one of the conspicuous pundits of youngsters' writing, has remarked in his article "Presentation: The World of Children's Studies" that characterising kids' writing is exaggerated to such an extent that "… expanses of ink have been spilled on this issue". In any case, noticed that there is no single fixed meaning of youngsters' writing. Diminish Hunt has characterised it as a class that subsumes any content (composed, verbally expressed, visual) expected for youngsters. As expressed by him, "All definitions depend on their motivation; thus the broadest meaning of Children's writing — any content read by any youngster — is of minimal commonsense worth" as this would incorporate each content read by kids. Kimberley Reynolds gives a general meaning of youngsters' writing in Children's Literature: A Short Introduction, as "The material is written to be perused by kids and youngsters, distributed by kids' distributers, and followed and racked in the kids' or potentially youthful grown-up segments of the libraries and bookshops". Nancy Anderson characterises youngsters' writing in her book Elementary Children's Literature: Infancy through Age 13 as all books composed for kids "barring works, for example, comic books, joke books, animation books, and true to life works that are not planned to be perused from front to back, for

One of the striking researchers of kids' writing, Prema Srinivasan has discussed a segment of the certain attributes of youngsters' accounts, for example, "intermittent plot components, more prominent adaptability of story occasions and the nearness of kid heroes." She further sees that "Characters in kids' books will, in general, be marginally overwhelming, more vivid, and sentimental than ordinary individuals. The intermittent topics in youngsters' writing are journey theme and experience". Another intermittent trademark is a reiteration which is a typical component used to stress the important messages given in the content. It happens repetitively in conventional people's stories and fantasies just as in nursery rhymes for kids. Education is an essential fraction of the youngsters' intellectual history. Since antiquated occasions, one of the significant elements of kids' writing is to educate and teach youngsters. Another relevant component of kids' writing is positive thinking. Customarily, the majority of the tales for youngsters end with "joyfully ever after". This hopeful peak of vision is a significant piece of the youngsters' story. Stories assume a fantastic job in moulding kids' reasoning and helping them to comprehend their environmental factors. As Kimberley Reynolds appropriately asserts, "Stories are key wellsprings of the pictures, vocabularies, mentalities, structures, and clarifications, which can be significant bearers of data about changes in culture, present, and past". There has been an enormous flood of topics and introduction in the youngsters' writing—both for each sort of peruser. She clarifies, "Fiction dependent on a wide assortment of topics is being composed for kids extending from experience, dream, fantasy retold and verifiable and personal fiction". The class contains a broad scale of books, including perceived works of art of kids' books, picture books and simple to peruse stories composed solely for kids, fantasies, tales, society melodies, sonnets and other writing implied for perusers in the age gathering of three to sixteen, which make it hard to characterised in one specific way.

1. To analyse the Masculine/Feminine Gendered Character Oriented or Neutral Themes of Picture Books in India 2. To examine the Frequency Counts of Representation of Masculine/Feminine Gendered Character Oriented or Neutral Themes of Picture Books in India 3. To analyse the Masculine, feminine, neutral and equal gendered characters are equally distributed in themes of picture books by using the chi-square test

The present chapter examines the representation of the women as well as girls in the selected representation book for offspring in India. The focus is on the picture books published or reprinted during the period from 2011 to 2016 by some of the major publishers of children‘s literature in India like National Book Trust (NBT), Children‘s Book Trust (CBT), Tulika, Katha and a few others. The chapter starts with defining picture books and a discussion on the need to study various types of picture books, takes a brief overview of the study done in the past in India, covers research methodology adopted to determine the ratio of the frequency of women's representation in the selected picture books as well as women are depicted in picture books. After analysing the findings with the application of statistical tests as well as thematic analysis of the texts, the researcher has summed up the observations in the final part of the chapter. The present research was completed to analyse the representation of women in the early reader books and easy reader chapter books for children. The sample of picture books for the content analysis of masculine/feminine gendered character-oriented or neutral titles, themes and central characters include two hundred and forty (240) picture books. These titles were collected from the catalogues of picture books published by concerned publishers For the data analysis of women‘s representation in them, frequency counts of masculine/feminine/neutral/equal (coded as M/F/N/E) gendered characters in titles and central roles in one hundred and fifty (150) books with traditional stories as well as eighty-five (90) books with contemporary stories were recorded in two separate code sheets — one for traditional stories and another for contemporary stories. The collected data was put together in the form of tables and pie charts for analysis of the representation of women in them. In order to determine the gender dominance of one particular gender, the statistical tool of chi-square test was applied to the overall collected data of chapter books. For thematic content analysis, a close reading of ninety stories with traditional themes as well as fifty stories with contemporary themes was done. The selected stories were scrutinised with a focus on recurrent themes of gender stereotyping, gender bias and discrimination as well as the patriarchal influence in the depiction of women in them. Chi-Square Test The test of Chi-square is the fundamental factual technique to measure the varieties in two variables. The correlation between expected and observed numbers or frequencies can be measured by the Chi-square test in the research methodology. This technique is used to measure the accompanying problems: • Test of goodness of fit. • Test of significance (between two attributes). • Test the significance of the variance of the populace. The frequency of one variable can be compared with the different values of another variable. For example, if a research researcher needs to test the relationship between gender (male and female gender) and empathy. The researcher can use the test of independence to consider the relationship between gender and empathy. If an invalid hypothesis is accepted, then it means that there are no relations between empathy and gender. There is a relationship in gender and empathy if an invalid hypothesis is rejected. The recipe for the chi-square measurement used in the chi-square test is The chi-square equation. Where,  Oi = observed frequency  Ei = expected frequency

H0: Masculine, feminine, neutral and equal gendered characters are equally distributed in themes of picture books. Vs H1: Masculine, feminine, neutral and equal gendered characters are not equally distributed themes of picture books.

The study was completed to analyse the depiction of women characters in selected eighty picture books and six collections of value teaching picture books. Content analysis was the guiding method for the study. The content analysis included selecting a sample of picture books to study, developing procedures to classify data, coding the data and interpreting the findings. Content analysis can be quantitative or qualitative or mixed. The researcher took a quantitative approach by examining the frequency counts of women depictions in picture books under study. The books were not examined for their overall meaning; however, they were analysed focusing on the depiction of women in them directly or indirectly. Each picture book understudy was read, examined and analysed in order to find out the ratio of representation of women in them.

A book's central character was classified as M if the story revolves around a man protagonist (Table No. 1). Out of two hundred and forty (240) books referred from selected picture book catalogues published during the period of 2011 to 2016 by listed publishers, one hundred and five (105) picture books had a masculine character in a central role which is a 44 % of the selected books. If a picture book has a woman protagonist, the central character is coded as F. Out of two hundred and forty (240) books of selected picture books; only sixty- eight (68) picture books contain a feminine character in the prominent role, which is 28 % of the total selected books. The central character of the picture book is coded as N, where gender is not mentioned or identifiable. Total sixty-seven (67) out of two hundred and forty (240) books had neither a man nor a woman significant character in their stories and therefore were coded as N. It comprises 28% of the total picture book titles.

To analyse the gender dominance of a particular gendered character in titles, themes and central roles, the chi-square test was applied to the collected data.

The aim here is to check whether there is any dominance of particular gender in the theme of picture books. For this purpose, the chi-square test of goodness of fit is used. H0: Masculine, feminine, neutral and equal gendered characters are equally distributed in themes of picture books. Vs H1: Masculine, feminine, neutral and equal gendered characters are not equally distributed themes of picture books. The calculated value obtained by applying the test procedure is using the chi-square test.

H0 is rejected at 5% level of significance. It means gender distribution in themes of picture books is not equal. As the frequency of masculine gendered themes is maximum, the masculine gendered themes are more dominant in comparison with other gendered themes.

The beginnings of youngsters' dream fiction can be followed to society fantasies. Regardless of the way that they are viewed as the most established type of youngsters' writing, they were, at the outset, amusement for grown-ups rather than newborn children's accounts. People's stories were told at all degrees of society during the medieval times and the Renaissance, despite the fact that they most likely began in workers' houses. Society stories have frequently been viewed as all-inclusive be that as it may, truth be told, they contrast when we move to start with one social or semantic zone then onto the next. As right on time as the Middle Ages youngsters were recognised from grown-ups, in spite of the fact that the medieval idea of adolescence varied from its cutting edge structure. Kids were not, for example, consequently dealt with by their folks, since another person, maybe an inaccessible family member, an employed babysitter or only a bystander, could carry events and a few researchers even suggested perusing instructive stories and singing tunes to youngsters. Indeed, even the possibility of a blameless kid, normally associated with Romanticism, has its foundations in medieval times. Later on, in the seventeenth century, the possibility of youth reinforced. C. John Somerville stresses that youth was found, as he would like to think, in Puritan England. He comments that the Puritans delivered sensible depictions of youth, just as writing that furnished the youthful with both strict instruction and engaging perusing. In this part analysed the delineation of ladies just as young ladies in the chose picture books for kids in India. Picture books are those books where the story is told dominatingly through outlines with a couple of lines of supporting content. Picture books are typically proposed to be perused so anyone might hear by grown-ups to the kids matured three to six years old. The examination concentrated on three sorts of picture books that are esteem books, silent books furthermore, picture storybooks to break down the portrayal of ladies in them. The example of picture books for content investigation of manly/female-gendered or on the other hand nonpartisan character situated titles, topics, and focal characters included 200 and six picture books just as six assortments of significant worth instructing picture books. As indicated by the information gathered, it was unmistakably noticeable that Indian picture books have fewer ladies portrayal contrasting with manly gendered characters in titles, topics, focal jobs, portrayal and representations. The under-portrayal of ladies characters in youngsters' books and the outcomes that it prompts has been talked. "Youngsters checking in the rundown of titles of what has been assigned as the absolute best youngsters' books will undoubtedly get the feeling that young ladies are not significant since nobody tried to expound on them". In the wake of recording the information as code sheets, it was examined factually with the assistance of the specialists in this field. A factual test to be specific chi-square test was utilised for this reason. The test is applied when there are two downright factors accessible from a single populace. It is utilised to decide if there is a huge relationship between the two factors. In the current information, sexual orientation of the characters (manly/ ladylike/ nonpartisan/ equivalent portrayal of the two sexual orientations) and a class of the books (picture books, art books, and youthful grown-up short stories) were two factors. The point was to check whether there is a strength of a specific sex in every classification of the book. The theory was that male-gendered, female-gendered, impartial and equivalent characters have equivalent strength lay in the title of books against

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Research Scholar, Kalinga University, Raipur, Chhattisgarh