At the center of Gender Studies is the question of the interrelationships between gender and culture, society, and the sciences. It explores the meanings that gender has in the constitution of identities, communities, and institutions. Since the 1970s, research on children's and youth literature has also been examining how children's and youth literature and media participate in the negotiation of gender within specific historical and socially discursive conditions. Gender serves as one of the central categories of socio-cultural and individual self-interpretation and representation, focusing on literary historical investigations into the portrayals of femininity and masculinity, as well as current cultural, literary, and media studies engagements with narratives, imagery, genres, and media.