Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Children’s Literature
Maria José Botelho, Ed. D., was a faculty member at the Ontario Institute of
Studies in Education of the University of Toronto and is currently Assistant Profes-
sor of Literacy Education in the Language, Literacy, and Culture Concentration of
School of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Masha Kabakow Rudman, Ed. D., is Professor of Children’s Literature and Multi-
cultural Education in the Language, Literacy, and Culture Concentration of School
of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Language, Culture, and Teaching
Sonia Nieto, Series Editor
Foreword ix
Sonia Nieto
Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xix
1 The Metaphors We Read By: Theoretical Foundations 1
2 The Historical Construction of Children’s Literature 17
3 Reading Literacy Narratives 37
4 Deconstructing Multiculturalism in Children’s Literature 71
5 Theorizing Critical Multicultural Analysis of
Children’s Literature 101
6 Doors to the Diaspora: The Social Construction of Race 127
7 Leaving Poverty Behind: The Social Construction of Class 153
8 Genres as Social Constructions: The Intertextuality of
Children’s Literature 191
9 Cinderella: The Social Construction of Gender 221
10 Shock of Hair: The Endurance of Hair as a Cultural
Theme in Children’s Literature 241
11 Teaching Critical Multicultural Analysis 259
Further Dialogue with Mingshui Cai, Patrick Shannon,
and Junko Yokota 277
Appendices
Appendix A Children’s Book Awards 293
vii
viii • Contents
Index 345
Foreword
SONIA NIETO
Professor Emerita
University of Massachusetts Amherst
ix
x • Foreword
recognize that the school and library are not islands unto themselves but
rather that they exist within a sociopolitical context that is global, national,
and local. This context currently includes, on the national and world levels,
globalization policies that are leading to increased poverty and depriv-
ation, particularly in developing countries. In those countries, it is a
context that is resulting in decreasing opportunities and increasing oppres-
sion, and consequently, in greater immigration and, at the same time, in
harsher immigration policies, particularly in Western Europe and the
United States. It is also a context that includes an undeclared war in which
thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been
killed; and a “war on terror” leading to a growing fear of the “Other” in
our own nation, a chipping away of our civil rights, and, on an inter-
national level, to a greater mistrust of the United States among many other
nations in the world. In schools, and, increasingly, in colleges and uni-
versities, the context includes rigid accountability structures, the scripting
of the curriculum and erosion of faculty rights, and even the imposition of
particular teaching methods (for example, at the school level, the exclusive
use of phonics) or approaches to research (in schools of education, inflex-
ible conceptions of “scientifically based research”) that make teaching, and
especially the teaching of literature to children, almost an impossibility in
many schools. This is the context that Botelho and Rudman think about as
they ask us to consider using a critical multicultural analysis of children’s
literature in our work as teachers and teacher educators.
The critical multicultural analysis of children’s literature presupposes
an understanding of this sociopolitical context. In these pages, you will
find, for instance, a history of the publishing industry in terms of child-
ren’s literature, as well as a history of the representation of people of color
in the literature. You will find theoretical discussions of the social con-
structions of race, class, and gender, and a deconstruction of multicultural-
ism. You will learn to use various lenses to develop multiple analyses of the
same texts, and you will read descriptions and analyses of many children’s
books. While theorizing about gender, you will read about the Cinderella
story in numerous global contexts; while learning about the controversies
and conflicts inherent in the topic of hair, you will find cogent and helpful
analyses of children’s books that treat this topic in many different ways.
And, at the end of the book, you will find yourself engaged in conversation
not just with the authors but also with Junko Yokota, Mingshui Cai, and
Patrick Shannon, some of the most significant scholars in the field, as they
reflect on the critical teaching of children’s literature. Throughout, you will
discover that it is the weaving together of theory and practice that makes
this book especially unique and timely.
Children’s literature is a contested terrain, as is multicultural education.
Foreword • xi
Works Cited
Freire, Paul (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury Press.
Larrick, Nancy (1965, September). The all-white world of children’s books, Saturday Review,
48 (11), 63–65.
Preface
xiii
xiv • Preface
relations in the United States. While the racialized context of the United
States contributes to this paradigm it distracts us from the more complex
intragroup and intergroup cultural dynamics and social relations, render-
ing many cultural experiences invisible and making the complexities of
power relations an abstraction. Further, it supports the erroneous assump-
tion that in naming literature “multicultural,” it represents diverse
experiences other than White, European American.
In this book, we argue for a critical multicultural analysis of children’s
literature, an orientation towards reading, learning, teaching, and the
world. This kind of analysis can help readers deconstruct taken-for-
granted assumptions about language, meaning, reading, and literature, and
leads to “resocialization” (Shor, 1992) for and construction of a society
that is socially just.
When we untangle multiculturalism from “multicultural children’s
literature,” we can ask: Who is represented, underrepresented, mis-
represented, and/or invisible? How is power exercised? We can challenge all
texts. We can argue with the author, question assumptions, unmask
ideologies, and examine how the author uses language. We can speculate
on ways to acknowledge alternative perspectives. And we can re-imagine
and transform the world in which we live (Botelho, 1998, 2004).
We advocate for reading that goes beyond stretching children’s cultural
imagination, to reading that fosters historical and sociopolitical imagin-
ation. Bringing a critical lens to the study of multiculturalism in children’s
literature invites the reader to deconstruct dominant ideologies of U.S.
society (e.g., race, class, gender, and individualism) which privilege those
whose interests, values, and beliefs are represented by these worldviews.
It is reading power, the complex web of sociopolitical relations.
Race, class, and gender matter. Critical multicultural analysis brings
socioeconomic class into the conversations about race and gender, so we
can better understand how these systems of oppression intersect (hooks,
2000). A critical multicultural analysis of children’s literature interrupts
the social myth that we live in a classless, equitable, and just society, and
that everyone has access to the “American Dream” as long as they demon-
strate initiative, effort, and ability (Sleeter, 1998). This dominant ideology
circulates in children’s books.
Our past and present social locations and aspirations for the future have
implications for where and how we might take action in challenging
existing power relations. Bronwyn Davies (1999) argues that feminist
poststructuralist theory requires a “recognition of oneself as historically
and discursively located, that is, as located in a context (or contexts) where
that which is taken as given (both in the everyday world and in the world
of theorists and researchers) forms a background that necessarily shapes
Preface • xv
world of her community. The carpet of flowers made by her father from
flower petals and greens, in preparation for the passing of a religious
procession, evokes the sacredness and social transformative possibilities of
everyday life. Within this house, a construction site of sorts, her parents
guided Maria José and her siblings in the deconstruction and reconstruc-
tion of unjust ways of being in the world.
literacy resources of code breaker, text pariticipant, text user, and text critic
(Luke & Freebody, 1999) to analyze how literacy is depicted in children’s
literature.
The definition of culture is deconstructed and reconstructed in Chapter
4, creating a space to retrace the development of the literary category of
multicultural children’s literature, and to review its scholarship. We reveal
the scholarly silence of class in children’s literature and advocate for bring-
ing class into the critical dialogue on race and gender. Class is an over-
looked social construct, even though it is central to the U.S. context. (We
demonstrate how class works with race and gender in books when we
analyze children’s literature about Chicano/a migrant farmworkers in
Chapter 7.)
Chapter 5 examines the discourse of multicultural children’s literature
by locating the discursive threads of otherness and self-esteem, and
naming issues of invisibility and silences. We consider the theoretical con-
structs of ideology, identity, subject positions, and power, and theorize a
power continuum, using a multi-layered lens to examine how texts
embody power relations.
Chapter 6 offers a historical sketch of how race has been socially con-
structed over time. We deconstruct the American Dream and propose that
we consider the United States as a diaspora, creating a space for examining
the complexities of power. We particularly focus on the history and socio-
political context of Mexican American participation in migrant agri-
cultural work as well as a review of Mexican American representation in
children’s literature, which we utilize in Chapter 7, in analyzing the text
collection that represents this culture/power experience in children’s
literature.
In Chapter 8, we consider how genres shape how stories get told as well
as influence the reader’s expectations of the text. In Chapter 9, we consider
the story of Cinderella as a genre and explore its structural elements. We
offer a cross-cultural and cross-temporal analysis of multiple variants of
this storyline, showing its endurance across place and time. The Cinderella
folk tales are implicated in the social construction of gender.
We analyze the cultural theme of hair in Chapter 10 against the contro-
versy surrounding a White teacher’s use of the children’s book, Nappy
Hair, by Carolivia Herron. In Chapter 11, we revisit the sociopolitical
dimensions of critical multicultural analysis by considering the peda-
gogical implications of what we read and how we read. We review the
research literatures on the teaching of multicultural children’s literature
and use our theoretical/pedagogical framework to speak to the possi-
bilities, dilemmas, and challenges addressed. We end the chapter with the
possibility of children writing their own stories, as a way to talk back to
xviii • Preface
publishing practices, and capturing and analyzing their own language use
in action.
We invited Mingshui Cai, Patrick Shannon, and Junko Yokota to
respond to our theoretical framework. At the end of the book, you will find
our negotiated dialogue, constructed from an ongoing e-mail exchange.
While the book may be read in any order, we deliberately organized it to
guide the reader in developing an understanding of the constructs and
practices of critical multicultural analysis. Our intent is not to standardize
the reading process but to make our critical reading public, as a way to
“scaffold conscientização” (Sleeter, Torres & Laughlin, 2004).
We have been working together on this book for several years. During
this time, we grew together theoretically and pedagogically, experienc-
ing our theoretical leanings in many ways: It was a decolonizing experi-
ence. Our writing changed over time. Our language became explicitly pol-
itical. In reading multiple drafts of this text, we found our layered selves,
our multiple understandings. We do not want to contradict ourselves, but
given our multiple subjectivities, questions are inevitable. This is not a
final text, but rather a work in progress, leading us to rethink the teaching
of children’s literature. We invite you, the reader, to read and apply this text
critically and multiculturally.
References
Botelho, Maria José. (1998). The postmodern untangling of critical multiculturalism from
multicultural children’s literature: Creating space for critical literacy. Unpublished
manuscript, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Botelho, Maria José. (2004). Reading class: Disrupting power in children’s literature.
Unpublished dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Davies, Bronwyn. (1999). What is feminist poststructuralist research? Examining texts of
childhood. In Barbara Kamler (Ed.), Constructing gender and difference: Critical
research perspectives on early childhood (pp. 13–31). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
hooks, bell. (2000). Where we stand: Class matters. New York: Routledge.
Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Luke, Allan & Freebody, Peter. (1999). A map of possible practices: Further notes in the four
resources model. Practically Primary 4(2), 5–8.
Shor, Ira. (1992). Empowering education: Critical teaching for social change. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
Sleeter, Christine. (1998). Teaching Whites about racism. In E. Lee, D. Menkart, & M.
Okazawa-Rey (Eds.), Beyond heroes and holidays: A practical guide to K-12 anti-racist,
multicultural education and staff development. Washington, DC: Network of Educators
on the Americas.
Sleeter, Christine, Torres, M. N. & Laughlin, P. (2004). Scaffolding conscientization through
inquiry in teacher education. Teacher Education Quarterly, 31(1), 81–96.
Acknowledgements
The poet Antonio Machado says that we make the road by walking. The
road to this work has been long and arduous, but I have not walked alone:
Great companions walked with me along the way. My two beloved men-
tors, Sonia Nieto and Masha Kabakow Rudman, accompanied me. Their
research and teaching are central to my work. Thank you to Masha for the
invitation to co-write this book because it created a space for us to think,
learn, and write together, time that I will always cherish. Thank you to
Sonia for the many invitations to teach multicultural education, experi-
ences that deepened my understanding of how power works in the United
States.
Thank you to Professors Cathy Luna and William Moebius for their
thoughtful participation during my doctoral studies, mentoring that
greatly contributed to this book project.
Thank you to my dear mentors at the Ontario Institute for Studies of
Education at the University of Toronto: Dean Jane Gaskell and Professors
Dennis Thiessen, Tara Goldstein, Doug McDougall, and Normand LaBrie.
Their inspiration and support over the past several years was instrumental
in the completion of this work. What a blessing it is to have my beloved
OISE colleagues in my life: David Booth, Linda Cameron, Patricia Chow,
Sarah Cohen, Jim Cummins, Mary Kooy, Lisa Leoni, Miriam Patterson,
Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, and Padma Sastri. Thank you to Shelley
Stagg Peterson, my cherished OISE “buddy,” for her support and interest
in this book. Thank you to Eunice Jang and Julie (Jules) Kerekes for their
love and understanding. I am so blessed to have them. They will be forever
in my heart.
xix
xx • Acknowledgements
that there are many I have overlooked. Suffice it to say that this has been a
collaborative project from the beginning and will continue to be so.
The metaphors of mirrors and windows have often framed the scholarship of
multicultural children’s literature. Children need to see themselves
reflected so as to affirm who they and their communities are. They also
require windows through which they may view a variety of differences.
Books are one way they learn about the world. Once these foundations of
story and society are internalized, literature can become a conduit—a
door—to engage children in social practices that function for social justice.
Literary works focusing on African Americans, Native Americans, Latino/a
Americans, and Asian Americans are strongly based on the black/white
paradigm that is historically rooted in U.S. power relations. The publica-
tion of children’s literature by and about people of color was a response to
biased sociopolitical and publishing practices that contributed to the
underrepresentation of people of color in U.S. public education and child-
ren’s literature.
Critical multicultural analysis of children’s literature (Botelho, 2004)
demands a shift from the dominant paradigm of race relations between
African Americans and European Americans to one that combines the U.S.
power relations of class, race, and gender together. Critical multicultural
analysis of children’s literature acknowledges that all literature is a histor-
ical and cultural product and reveals how the power relations of class, race,
and gender work together in text and image, and by extension, in society.
(We appreciate the power of image and consider it consistently alongside
text. For the purpose of conciseness, we will use text to be all encompassing
and inclusive of image.)
1
2 • Metaphors We Read By: Foundations
the text and increases their pleasure with and understanding of the text.
They participate actively and collaboratively across texts and images. Inter-
textuality is central to this work: Children see that the text’s meaning is
constructed and reconstructed in interaction with the text, each other, and
the world. The critical analysis leads to reconstruction of the text’s mes-
sages and spaces for apprenticing with new ways of being in the world. The
teacher and student roles are reconciled because everyone is actively
involved in the reading process. Teachers are no longer keepers of textual
meaning.
Through critical analysis, children, Barbara Comber (2001: 8) argues,
acquire “repertoires of literacies . . . aesthetic, ethical, cultural, moral
stances, views about knowledge, ways of working, organising (sic), thinking
and interacting.” She continues:
Critical literacy makes children’s interests central, because it involves
discussing with children how texts work and how they work in the
world. It is in all children’s individual and collective interests to know
that texts are questionable, they are put together in particular ways
by particular people hoping for particular effects and they have
particular consequences for their readers, producers and users.
(Comber, 2001: 9)
When readers interact emotionally and intellectually with books, their
aesthetic stance creates space to consider the texts’ cultural assumptions.
However, children need support in cultural critique (Cai, 2008). Critical
multicultural analysis offers a critical scaffold for reading power in child-
ren’s literature.
Classroom Applications
• What metaphors do children associate with reading? Guide children
in deconstructing these associations. What do the metaphors tell
them about their processes as readers?
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14 • Metaphors We Read By: Foundations