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.  

scholarly journals Voices of Resistance

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-38
Author(s):  
Luz Yadira Herrera
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Ya Literature ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Multicultural Children's Literature ◽  
Gender Constructions ◽  
Multiple Audiences ◽  
History Of

Voices of resistance: Interdisciplinary approaches to Chican@ children's literature gathers a wide range of experts from diverse academic fields in the analysis of Chicanx children’s and young adult (YA) literature.  The editors convincingly make the case for the urgency of using multicultural children’s literature as a means for empowerment and social justice. The book provides a solid framework that is useful to multiple audiences–from caregivers, teachers, school leaders, community members, to teacher educators, and beyond. The book highlights the Chicanx history of resistance, as indicated in its title, situated in the various US socio-political contexts that have negatively impacted people of color since the country’s formation. The book reminds us of the important role that literature has on the lives of children; and its potential to either affirm an asset-based perspective connected to their lives, cultural identities, gender constructions, and home language practices of Chicanx children and youth, or to perpetuate harmful deficit views. Furthermore, the book reminds us that powerful children’s and YA literature can help raise Chicanx children’s consciousness, even from a young age, towards sustaining self-love in the uplifting of Chicanx identity, culture, and linguistic practices. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018)

Supporting Teacher Candidates as Social Justice Change-Makers

2021 ◽  
pp. 398-421
Author(s):  
Anne Homza ◽  
Tiffeni J. Fontno
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Teacher Educator ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Shared Goal ◽  
Support Teacher ◽  
Future Work

Critical consciousness, teacher agency, intellectual freedom, and equity-informed practices are vital aspects of a collaboration between a faculty member and an educational librarian, whose shared goal is to support teacher candidates' capacity to use diverse children's literature to teach for social justice. In this chapter, teacher educator Homza and head librarian Fontno share ways to help teacher candidates use diverse children's literature to develop their own critical consciousness, explore issues of equity, and teach for social justice in their future classrooms. Grounding their work in conceptual frameworks, the authors discuss their positionalities, how the literature collection is built, and course activities that use diverse children's literature. Teacher candidates' reflections suggest that these efforts have an impact on their critical consciousness and capacity to engage in the challenging work of transformative pedagogy. The authors share implications for other teacher educators and librarians and questions to explore in future work.

Essay Review: Crossing Borders/Shifting Paradigms: Multiculturalism and Children's Literature

1995 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 634-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Culturally Diverse ◽  
Essay Review ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Critical Multiculturalism ◽  
Utopian Vision ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Broad Understanding

If we lived in a democratic state our language would have to hurtle, fly, course and sing, in all the undeniable and representative and participating voices of everybody here. We would make our language conform to the truth of our many selves and we would make our language lead us into the quality of power that a democratic state must represent. (Jordan, 1987, p. 24) June Jordan's words bring forth a utopian vision of a future in which issues of language, voice, truth, power, and democracy all come together in the creation of a culturally diverse democratic world. She speaks in the language of a critical multiculturalism, one in which words such as representation, many selves, power, and democracy are integral. In this article, I develop a broad understanding of the basic epistemological positions underlying the discourse of multicultural education and, in particular, multiculturalism in children's literature.

scholarly journals Literacy Teacher Educators Creating Space for Children’s Literature

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 288
Author(s):  
Lydia Menna ◽  
Clare Kosnik ◽  
Pooja Dharamshi
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Construction Of Knowledge ◽  
Teacher Trainees ◽  
Literacy Teacher ◽  
Support Teacher

This paper reports on a qualitative research study that examined how 10 literacy teacher educators (LTEs) utilized children’s literature to invite teacher trainees to critically engage with social issues, challenge their assumptions about literacy, and begin to develop the knowledge and dispositions to work alongside diverse learners (e.g., culturally, linguistically, socio-economically). The LTEs recognized that teacher trainees often entered their literacy courses with restricted conceptions of literacy and deficit assumptions about children from economically marginalized and/or culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Within their courses, the LTEs positioned literacy as a multifaceted social practice, wherein access to a variety of representational resources facilitates the active construction of knowledge and identities. The LTEs modeled instructional strategies and designed assignments that encouraged teacher trainees to use children’s literature as a means to connect with issues relevant to the lives of young learners within contemporary classrooms. This research will be of interest to LTEs who endeavor to use children’s literature as a springboard to support teacher trainees to develop a self-reflective stance and a critical cultural consciousness.

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