Traditional and contemporary role models of the father as depicted in animated fairy tales and their educational significance

<ns3:p>The purpose of the article was to analyze the ways of depicting the father and their educational significance in modern fairy tales, making the theoretical framework the traditional and contemporary models of performing the role of the father. Using a collective method of individual case study and a technique such as document analysis, 20 animated fairy tales from 2010-2024 were analyzed in detail. They were considered through the perspective of four main categories related to the father's personality traits, his position in the family, his fields of activity, and his role and involvement in parenting. The results of the analysis show the absence of a dominant pattern of the father's role, thus it is reasonable to conclude that fairy tales contain both traditional and contemporary patterns in their message. The intertwining aspects of traditional and modern fatherhood allow us to see the transformation of the father's role over the course of the fairy tale's ongoing plot. Thus, the fairy tales present a variety of attributes of the so-called „new father” such as sensitivity, caring, the creation of partnerships based on equality and mutual assistance for the upbringing of a young person, among others.</ns3:p>