Depictions of public service in children's literature: Revisiting an understudied aspect of political socialization

Objective. Scholars who have investigated depictions of public service in c hildren literature have come to a mix of conclusions regarding the portraya l of public figures in children's literature. We revisit these studies, att empting to answer the question of how public servants are portrayed in chil dren's literature. Methods. We perform content analysis of 93 books and exa mine 868 characters for benevolence and competence. Results. We find that p ublic servants are portrayed as no more incompetent or malevolent than othe r adults in children's literature. On a few dimensions, we find just the op posite. Furthermore, we find that women in general are portrayed as more be nevolent than men, although the same patterns are not found between sexes w hen examining only those in the public service. Conclusions. If children ar e developing negative stereotypes of government officials and institutions, these stereotypes do not appear to be formed through their reading of chil dren's literature.