The Reappearance of Gratitude in Picture Books

• Main Authors: CHANG, JIA-MIIN, 張珈敏
• Other Authors: Yuanher Robin Hwang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/sd9k8a

碩士 === 明道大學 === 課程與教學研究所 === 105 === The background and the motivation of this research are based on some emergent situations the researcher dealt with in the kindergarten and found children’s gratitude behaviors need attention. It seems that there are something to be figured out. Gratitude is one of the important items in character education, and there are many researches affirming that picture books do help children’s character education. The aim of this research is to explore the thinking and strategy proposed by writers and illustrators in picture books and to provide parents and educators the access to help children to get familiar with gratitude.The researcher also try to point a way for editors in the character educational field. The texts analyzed in this research are from picture books mainly for 4-6 year-old children, referring to suggestions by publishers. The goal of this research is to understand reasons and processes of gratitude educational, and to know how gratitude convey, through analyzing 16 picture books about gratitude themes, from plots, words, and pictures shown in the books. The method of this research is a qualitative content analysis.We as a result, the researcher finds the reasons of generating gratitude behaviors can be the following 5 types： (1) Something beneficial─ When children receive kindness from others, they tend to treat others as kind as they feel； (2) Goodwill─ When someone shows good will although does nothing, we still tend to be thankful for others.；(3) The value of existence─ Show the gratitude to all the good or natural things in the world； (4) Religious respect─ People who are respected by others in the religious realm could convey the idea that showing gratitude may bring happiness to oneself；(5) Satisfied status─ Finding the satisfied differences between now and past can generate gratitude. Moreover, the processes of gratitude education can be divided into two parts: one is direct process, and the other is implicit process, while ways to convey gratitude can include graphics and texts. The research recommends parents or educational workers to know more about the reasons for encouraging the behavior of gratitude, and its explicit way to promote gratitude. To researchers, the auther suggests referring the choosing criteria of this research and applying to further studies of educational environment. Researchers could explore differences in the idea of gratitude between the west and the east, differences of picture books about gratitude among different eras, or differences of picture books about gratitude in different ages. In addition, the author, proposes putting more emphasis on the switching experiences of people who shows gratitude and increasing the specific beharioral descriptions of gratitude.