Can children emancipate themselves from adults? : Children's worlds in contemporary German and Thai children's literature

Abstract

This paper aims to make a comparative analysis of contemporary German and Thai children’s literature in terms of children’s worlds. The result of the study shows that a number of German children’s literary works present children as the “partners of adults”. This results from a perspective towards German children that they are people who have the same rights as an adult. In other words, they respect the children. Adults allow children to express their opinions freely or to make decisions on their own. By contrast, Thai children are normally socialized to differ from adults. The reason lies in the belief that a child is someone who is a “subordinate”. Children are expected to pay respect to adults and obey to their orders, responds to the expectations for children in the context of Thai society and culture