scholarly journals Children’s Literature in Critical Contexts of Displacement: Exploring the Value of Hope

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 383
Author(s):  
Julie E. McAdam ◽  
Susanne Abou Ghaida ◽  
Evelyn Arizpe ◽  
Lavinia Hirsu ◽  
Yasmine Motawy
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Safe Space ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Critical Content ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Critical Hope ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
Emerging Themes

The article builds upon work carried out through a Children’s Literature in Critical Contexts of Displacement (CLCCD) network funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council–Global Challenges Research Fund. The network brought together academics as well as government and non-governmental organisations with expertise in children’s literature, migration, and education who were actively working in Egypt and Mexico. They collaboratively designed workshops that examined the use of children’s literature as a cultural tool for post-crisis interventions that could contribute to creating a safe space for children and their families to reimagine and restore their self and group identities. This article begins by unravelling the concept of hope, arguing for a critical understanding of hope for transformative use within contexts of flux. Using a critical content analysis approach, five picturebooks used by Egyptian and Mexican mediators were analysed in order to develop an understanding of how critical hope developed within the texts. The emerging themes have been expanded into a set of guiding questions that will enable mediators and educators to use children’s literature in contexts of displacement or precarity.

Theorizing a Critical Race Content Analysis for Children’s Literature about People of Color

2020 ◽  
pp. 004208592096371
Author(s):  
Lindsay Pérez Huber ◽  
Lorena Camargo Gonzalez ◽  
Daniel G. Solórzano
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Critical Content ◽  
Critical Content Analysis

Concerns from scholars about the exclusion of People of Color in children’s literature began in the early 20th century and continues today. The lack of children’s literature about People of Color is even more alarming in the contemporary moment, when Children of Color comprise a significant proportion of urban schools throughout the U.S. Only since the 1990’s have scholars begun to critically examine the portrayals of People of Color in children’s books. More recent research offers frameworks and methodologies for critical analyses of children’s books, namely a Critical Content Analysis that offers strategies for the examination of discursive power in literature for youth. This conceptual article theorizes how Critical Race Theory (CRT) in Education can be utilized with a Critical Content Analysis to provide a new framework for the examination of race, class, gender, (and other intersectionalities) in children’s books about People of Color— A Critical Race Content Analysis. We provide guiding principles of a Critical Race Content Analysis and analytical questions as tools for researchers and educators interested in conducting their own critical analyses of books about People of Color. Finally, we illustrate how this analysis is conducted with an example of a children’s book about immigration. This article makes important contributions to the literature on urban education that call for providing educators with tools to develop “racial literacies”.

Celebrating the Arts With The Noisy Paint Box

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brittany Nixon May ◽  
Amy Baird Miner ◽  
Terrell A. Young ◽  
B. Gerilyn Ingalls
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Curriculum Integration ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Music Lesson ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Development Literature

Children’s literature offers many benefits to children, which include developing imagination, building knowledge, enhancing vocabulary, and offering pleasure. As it promotes these areas of development, literature can also serve as a gateway for curriculum integration. Literature can be a particularly powerful tool in executing a dynamic, integrated music lesson. In this article, the authors share how The Noisy Paint Box (2014), written by Barb Rosenstock and illustrated by Mary Grandpré, provides a context for students to explore the four artistic processes identified in the National Arts Standards in a music context: create, perform, respond, and connect. At the same time, the book provides opportunities to introduce students to artistic processes and practices shared by music, visual arts, literature, and dance.

scholarly journals Much Bigger Than a Hamburger: Disrupting Problematic Picturebook Depictions of the Civil Rights Movement

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noreen Naseem Rodriguez ◽  
Amanda Vickery
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Racial Violence ◽  
Youth Activism ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
Critical Content ◽  
The Face

While more diverse children's literature about youth activism is available than ever before, popular picturebooks often perpetuate problematic tropes about the Civil Rights Movement. In this article, we conduct a critical content analysis of the award-winning picturebook The Youngest Marcher and contrast the book's content to a critical race counterstory of the Movement focused on the collective struggle for justice in the face of racial violence. We argue for the need to engage students in civic media literacy through a critical race lens and offer ways to nuance the limited narratives often found in children's literature.

scholarly journals Unpacking Refugee Flight: Critical Content Analysis of Picturebooks Featuring Refugee Protagonists

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-44
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Strekalova-Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Critical Content ◽  
Critical Content Analysis ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Power And Agency

In this paper, I analyze representations of refugee flight in children’s literature to extrapolate related assumptions about power and agency. The findings suggest that picturebooks tend to adhere to refugee flight as a bureaucratic process and refugee as an institutionally imposed standardized identity. Specifically, stories canonically mirror the legal UNHCR definition of a refugee, establishing forced-to-flee narratives, centering persecution, and corroborating well-founded fear. Collectively, stories mask what leads to persecution and distribute power to essentialized “safe” countries resettling refugees. The implications call for diversity of representation and invite teachers to critically unpack contexts of refugee flight.

scholarly journals Touching Art: The Art Museum as a Picture Book, and the Picture Book as Art

2018 ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Perry Nodelman
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Picture Books ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Art Museum ◽  
Art Museums ◽  
Keynote Address ◽  
Verbal Language ◽  
Children's Picture Books ◽  
The Arts

Based on a keynote address delivered at the 2017 Child and the Book conference in Valencia on interdisciplinary links between children’s literature and the arts, this essay draws on its author’s experience first as a children’s literature scholar focused on picture books and then as a volunteer guide and docent for school tours in art museums. It explores how visits to art museums might be enriched by thinking about the art in them in the ways in which we think about the art in children’s picture books- as images illuminated by a context of nearby images and the verbal language they appear in connection with. After an exploration of common assumptions about how to look at art in museums and a consideration of the ways in which our knowledge of picture books might influence our interactions with that art, the essay also briefly considers how museum art might influence our understanding and appreciation of picture books.Key words: art, picture books, museums, galleries, context ResumenBasado en la conferencia plenaria pronunciada en 2017 en el congreso en Valencia The Child and the Book sobre vínculos interdisciplinares entre la literatura infantil y las artes, este artículo utiliza la experiencia del autor como guía voluntario y docente para visitas escolares a museos artísticos. Explora cómo las visitas a museos de arte pueden ser enriquecidas pensando acerca del arte que contienen de la manera en la que pensamos sobre el arte en los álbumes para niños y niñas – como imágenes iluminadas por un contexto de imágenes cercanas y por el lenguaje verbal que aparece en conexión con ellas. Tras una exploración de las asunciones habituales sobre cómo mirar el arte en los museos y una consideración sobre las maneras en las que nuestro conocimiento de los álbumes puede influir nuestras interacciones sobre este arte, el ensayo considera también brevemente cómo el arte de los museos puede influir nuestra comprensión y apreciación de los álbumes.Palabras clave: arte, álbumes, museos, galerías, contexto.   ResumBasat en la conferencia plenària pronunciada el 2017 al congrés a València The Child and the Book sobre vincles interdisciplinaris entre la literatura infantil i les arts, aquest article utilitza l’experiència de l’autor com a guia voluntari i com a docent per a visites escolars a museus artístics. Explora com les visites a museus d’art poden ser enriquides tot pensant sobre l’art que hi contenen de la manera en la que pensem sobre l’art en els àlbums per a infants – com a imatges il·luminades per un context d’imatges properes i pel llenguatge verbal que apareix en connexió amb elles. Després d’una exploració de les assumpcions habituals sobre com mirar l’art als museus i una consideració sobre les maneres en les quals el nostre coneixement dels àlbums pot influir les nostres interaccions sobre aquest art, l’assaig considera també breument com l’art dels museus pot influir la nostra comprensió i apreciació dels àlbums.Paraules clau: art, àlbums, museus, galeries, context.

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