Gatekeeping ethics, values, and the creative practitioner in the Australian children’s publishing industry

Abstract

This project is conducted through creative practice-led research, a methodological framework in which my creative writing and traditional scholarly research have woven together, informing and building upon each other.
Picture books are among the most potent forms of influence and learning a child encounters in their formative years (Peterson & Lach 1990; Mokrzycki 2019). When children are invisible in a medium which is supposed to both teach and represent the society to which they are expected to become accustomed, not only is their invisibility reinforced, but the visibility of the dominant is asserted (Bishop, 1990).
In light of this, this thesis begins with the intent of exploring the construct of gender and gender relations in picture books, focusing on analysing and determining what sex-roles and gender modelling are being generated and published in Australian children’s picture books. I approach gender as not being limited to one particular feature, but rather as it involving all aspects associated with gender including representation, performance, and diversity, and the ways in which the publishing industry opens or closes doors on such issues.
With the intention of interrogating and addressing this through creative practice, I have produced a series of picture book manuscripts which intentionally and thoughtfully construct gender and sex roles within their narratives.
Through my creative practice-led research, I examined the ways in which the gatekeeping of creative practitioners in the Australian children’s publishing industry influences not only the sort of gender constructs being published, but also other sociopolitical values and issues.
I drew on frameworks from Bourdieu’s The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art aned Literature (1993) to construct a map of the field of Australian children’s picture books. To do this, I utilised creative research practice, heuristic inquiry, analyses of published children’s books and relevant scholarly literature alongside interviews and participant observation to build an objective data-based set of practices framed around field studies. In doing so, I gained a clearer picture of the long-established decision-making processes and gatekeeping practices, and how these practices impact both the content being published and the creatives who seek to be published. Analysis of this field, and the broader context in which it operates, suggests ways in which practitioners can navigate the field, and enact social change.

Date of Award	2023
Original language	English
Supervisor	Jen WEBB (Supervisor) & Jordan WILLIAMS (Supervisor)