A new study of racial representation in US textbooks by The Education Trust argues that numbers alone are not enough: changing the unequal representation of people of colour means changing not just how many are portrayed, but also how they are portrayed.
It is a purely qualitative approach. Racial diversity in books can and should increase over time, but if characters of color are depicted in simplistic, stereotypical, or negative ways, these books do not benefit America's undergraduate students, more than half of whom are now nonwhite.
Representation gaps
The study, published on Thursday, September 14 and written by Drs. Tanji Reed Marshall and William Rodick report figures that support this disservice: between 300 School books In the U.S. (chosen randomly, evenly across all grade levels, from publishers commonly used in English language arts curricula, such as Scholastic and Penguin Random House), nearly half of people of color are portrayed negatively.
This representation takes many forms: Individually, people of color are often portrayed as “one-dimensional” or lacking agency, the study said; groups or cultures of color are often portrayed with associated stereotypes or as inferior to others; and historical or social issues are “almost always sanitized, told from a singular perspective.”
“There has always been representation in the curriculum, and that representation is predominantly white,” he said. Dr Marshall . Those who want to fill representation gaps “must also push for the inclusion of books with fully realized and positively represented characters of color.”
This imbalance extends to the books' creators themselves: 232 of the 300 books had at least one white author or illustrator (77.3%), 6.8 times more than the next highest category: black creators, who were involved in 34 books (11.3%).
Determining the complex representation
The study divides the criteria it uses to determine complex, partial or limited representation into three categories: historically marginalized individuals, groups or cultures, and historical or social issues.
At the level of individuals, questions are suggested about their multidimensionality, agency, and influence (positive or negative); those of groups or cultures include stereotypes, positive values, and values in relation to other groups; those of historical and social issues include sanitization or oversimplification, inclusion of historically marginalized perspectives, and relationship of the issue to students' experiences.
280 of the 300 books had central characters, essential to the story or information. Of these, 124 had people of color (44%). However, only 53% of these people were portrayed with complexity, while another 44% had limited representation.
Dr. Rodick said, “At first, we were pleasantly surprised that half of the characters of color were represented with complexity. And then we were surprised that we were surprised, because that’s a very low bar. We want so much more than half. We were also surprised by how rare the overlaps of identity were, including different family structures, genders, disabilities, relationships to the prison system — those stories were still very much hidden on the page.”
118 of the books featured groups of color (39%), and less than a third of them (31%) did so with complexity “avoiding stereotypes, immersing people in the culture, and portraying groups of color in a positive and equally valuable way for other groups,” according to the study. More than half did not (54%).
On the socio-historical front, 137 books addressed historical or social themes (46%), and few did so with complexity (16%) “avoiding sanitization, including a marginalized perspective and connecting the topic with student realities.” The vast majority did not (80%).
“Like the increase in bans “Of books that can expose students to diverse representation, imbalances in this representation are not new,” Rodick said.
PEN America reports 1,477 individual book bans in the U.S. during the first half of the 2022-2023 school year, up 28% from the previous six months. The 40% of banned books between July 2021 and June 2022 had prominent protagonists or supporting characters of color; 21% had titles that indicated racial issues.
Examples of banned books include “I Am Rosa Parks,” “I Am Martin Luther King, Jr.,” “The Bluest Eye,” and “The Hill We Climb.”
Although greater representation is an uphill battle on the legislative front, some states such as Illinois (which, in June 2023, became the first to pass a book ban) and California , which passed a similar bill in September, are making historic progress.
“As we work toward greater freedom across the country,” Rodick said, “we will use our report as a basis for working closely with publishers, teachers, and curriculum advocates to create guidelines for reviewing what children read, understanding the boundaries of how people, groups, and themes are portrayed in these books, and deciding how to present these books for a fuller understanding of what is portrayed.”
Balancing limited representation
“An increase in Black characters in children’s books is fantastic,” Rodick said, “but we want to go beyond counting — not just whether they are portrayed, but how often they are portrayed negatively.”
“We don’t want anyone to eliminate or censor any book based on its representation, or to consider it good or bad; many of the limited ones are of indispensable value,” she continued. “We want to recognize the value of these limited books by adding more perspectives to them in order to engage students with them more deeply. If a book presents a topic in a very problematic way, it’s not a question of whether the reader should engage with it, but how best to engage with it.”
One of the books examined, for example, is the autobiography “Ruby Bridges Goes to School.” In it, Bridges frames racial segregation as a personal issue, with some white people feeling that they should not befriend black people.
According to the study, a more complex take on an adjacent topic is presented in the picture book “Nasreen’s Secret School,” set in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. In the story, the eponymous girl’s parents disappear and the regime forbids her to attend school and leave home without a male chaperone or burka. In defiance, Nasreen’s grandmother enrolls her in a secret school, where the girl finds solace in an outlawed world of art and literature with the support of her teacher.
That Ruby Bridges' personal perspective conveys a more limited representation of educational segregation than Nasreen's does not mean it is not an invaluable way to learn about it, Rodick stressed. However, it does mean that readers would learn more about it if the book were taught alongside others that present segregation in its social, economic or legal dimensions, beyond this personal limitation.
In short, the performance does not stop in front of a mirror.
“We engage students not only when they can see themselves come to life on the page, but also when they can see others come to life on the page, when they can step into each other’s worlds through their experiences,” Rodick said. “But you can’t get a full understanding of people who have these experiences through a single story — or from anyone.”
This publication was supported in whole or part by funding provided by the State of California, ayou administeredred by the CaliFornia State Library.
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