Multicultural Children's Literature: A Critical Issues Approach

2011 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Multicultural Children's Literature

A Portrait of Chinese Culture: Investigating Perceptions Presented in Children's Books

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca M. Giles ◽  
Susan F. Martin ◽  
Vitulli Paige
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Evaluation Tool ◽  
Cultural Authenticity ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
Urban Educators ◽  
Multicultural Children's Literature

AbstractAdministrators, librarians, parents, teachers, and teacher educators need to be familiar with quality multicultural children's literature as a means of helping children develop an understanding of others as well as affirming their own diverse backgrounds. In this study, 31 fictional picture books identified as containing representations of ethnic Chinese or their culture were examined for literary quality and cultural authenticity. Six reviewers (three Chinese and 3 American) independently evaluated each book using a revised 10-item version of the Multicultural Children's Literature Evaluation Tool (Higgins, J. J. (2002). Multicultural children's literature: creating and applying an evaluation tool in response to the needs of urban educators. New Horizons in Education. Retrieved from http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/multicultural-education/multicultural-childrens-literature/index.html) with the highest possible score being 30. Results indicated good interrater reliability with the mean score of the Chinese and American reviewers differing by less than 5 points for 24 books (80 %). Three books received a mean score of 30 by at least one group of reviewers, and three books received a mean score of below 19 by at least one group of reviewers. With results of studies such as this one at their disposal, adults are better prepared to select quality, culturally authentic literature to share with children.

scholarly journals What Can Danish Multicultural Children’s Literature and African American Children’s Literature Learn from Each Other?

Barnboken ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Mansour ◽  
Michelle H. Martin
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Multicultural Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Multicultural Children's Literature ◽  
African American Children's Literature ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
Definition Of

In its pedagogical context, multicultural literature is defined as an instrument for multicultural education that seeks to include and raise the voices of historically silenced and invisible minorities in the school curriculum.The contemporary American definition of multicultural literature emphasizes #OwnVoices and elevates authentic stories from insider perspectives, while in Denmark, no clear line is drawn between the author’s background and the literary content when categorizing multicultural literature that depicts minorities’ experiences. In this article, an African American scholar and a Danish scholar will put Danish and African American children’s literary histories in dialogue with one another and ask what Danish multicultural literature can learn from existing definitions within American multicultural and African American children’s literature, formulated by Rudine Sims Bishop, Mingshui Cai, and Michelle H. Martin. They will also address what literary movements and practices might be adapted to facilitate a more welcoming space for minority stories in Danish literature. In the United States, lively conversations are occurring about insiders vs. outsiders, #OwnVoices, and stereotypes; what are the implications for Danish children’s literature? The writers will analyze recently published works from each country that depicts the lives of minoritized people such as Özlem Cekic and Dorte Karrebæk’s Ayse får en lillebror (2018) and Derrick Barnes and Gordon C. James’s Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut (2017). This comparative analysis will highlight how marginalized and silenced voices bring new perspectives and fresh ideas into the cultural conversations of each country that would otherwise go unrepresented in children’s literature.  

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