Chapter 11 - Diverse Perspectives in Children's Literature

It is important for children to see their own cultures and values reflected in the book they read. The ability to see other cultures and life experiences is important in developing children's perspective, insight and possibilites as they progress to becoming citizens of the world.

Categories of Multicultural Literature:

Cultural Diversity
• African Americans, Latino/a Americans, Asian Americans, American Indians
• Culturally neutral: include culturally diverse characters but the topics of the books are about something else
• Culturally generic: books that focus on culturally diverse characters but include few details that differentiate a culture from the larger American culture
• Culturally specific: books that incorporate specific, culturally authentic details that define characters, plots, and themes

Religious Diversity
• Schools where religious diversity is honored to help children develop and preserve their cultural identity and understanding of their history, literature, art, and music

• Introduce children to content about religion rather than about the practice of a particular region
• Include a wide variety
• Don’t promote/degrade any religion
• Facilitate students awareness of religious differences

 • American Indian Spirituality
 • Hinduism
 • Buddhism
 • Judaism
 • Islam

Other Diverse Perspectives
 • Aging, gender equality, exceptionalities, language, social diversity, family structures

 Benefits of Multicultural and International Literature
• Positively affects students attitudes toward a wide range of diverse perspectives
• Reading and deep discussion of culturally specific multicultural literature increases students’ ability to examine the values, beliefs, and events in their personal and collective lives and the ability to view literacy as an empowering force in the classroom.

Research has show that the use of multicultural literature that accurately depicts the experiences of diverse groups may improve the literacy achievement of students of diverse backgrounds by increase in their motivation to read, their appreciation to understand of their own language and cultural heritage, their respect for their own life experience as a topic for writing, and cross-cultural understanding.

Diverse Books for your Classroom Library