Synthesis of interdisciplinary studies of children’s literature by considering audience

The purpose of this research is to analysis the attention to the audience in interdisciplinary studies in the field of children’s literature and suggest criteria for future research. In order to achieve this goal, the position of the audience has been described and analyzed in the structural elements of the research, including: purpose, components, method, and sample. Using Synthesis Research, 38 interdisciplinary research papers, including scientific articles and senior and doctoral dissertations, were selected and then their research structural elements were extracted and analyzed in descriptive tables. Based on the findings, three main goals were considered in these studies: Frequency, Representation, and Component Comparison. The studied components also fall into three areas of knowledge: psychology and education, sociology and culture, and ethics and religion. the number of components in the field of psychology and education is more than the other two. The research methodology of all studies was a content analysis method, and the sample of all of them was the child books, which was determined according to five criteria: year of publication and age group, author's name or particular book, type of story, specific subject, and selected books. Among them, the first criterion has been most widely used. Finally this study outlines the critical areas of research on children’s literature and identifies areas of further research.