JOURNAL ARTICLE
Keywords: Gender-sensitive language, Children’s literature, sexism, heteronormativity, and gender binary/ stereotypes.
Abstract: ‘Language development plays a very important role in the development of perceptual and practical concepts. Language enables us to check our experiences with others and ensure a shared meaning emerges from them. Thus, making sure that we grasp the socially accepted use of the practical concept or the socially accepted vocabulary that represents the perceptual concept’ (NCF 2020, pg.45). This paper tries to uncover the perceptual concepts and their influence on children through language. Sunderland says that both technologies and children’s books can unconsciously influence the receptor as agents of socialisation. It is important to create awareness among children about the insensitivity towards gender (including language use). Florent & Walter (1988) opine that sexism is an unconscious cultural bias that is reinforced by the language that people use from childhood onwards. This study is an attempt to explore how gender has been reintroduced as a psychosocial reality to the heteronormative culture established on the grounds of the gender binary through Children’s Literature. A qualitative content analysis approach is employed to critically examine the text and illustrations for verbal and visual narration. This paper aims to analyse picture books set in Indian settings as the primary texts. It leverages the idea of gender identity and expression to trace changes in children’s literature that foster realisation and change among children. This paper seeks to address the tendency to confine society within a binary framework through children’s literature and to explore how children's literature subverts stereotypical norms and calls for a change in society's perspective, especially through the use of gender-sensitive language.
Article Info: Received: 25 Apr 2026; Received in revised form: 21 May 2026; Accepted: 26 May 2026; Available online: 30 May 2026
DOI: 10.22161/ijeel.5.3.3
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