Representations of families, children and gender in the iconographic analysis of the educational material

“Beginning to Grow Gestation and Birth Guide” of the National Social Protection Program Grow With You

Abstract

The representations of families, childhood, and gender designed in the iconographic discourse of educational materials by the State can reinforce conservative narratives that protect the heterosexual nuclear family as opposed to a written discourse that would interpellate the diversity of families. This essay analyzes the iconographic story of families, childhood and gender in coherence with the educational role of public policies for the comprehensive protection of children and their families. For this purpose, it is analyzed the iconographic selection of the Guía de Gestación y Nacimiento, belonging to the national program Crece Contigo (2007). This allows to read what bodies and gender relations are omitted in the images that build the familiar iconorma of public discourse where prevails images of the heterosexual nuclear family model with an emphasis on the responsibility of women as carers. The message of the images reinforces the absence of the responsibility of the State and active fatherhood by naturalizing relations of subordination of women and girls to male authority in the head of the family as the state representative.