Where Are the People of Color?: Representation of Cultural Diversity in the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and Advocating for Diverse Books in a Non-Post Racial Society

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-1-2017

Publication Title

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

Volume

16

Issue

1

First page number:

38

Last page number:

54

Abstract

Guided by the research question “How are the diverse issues of race/ethnicity represented in the NBA?,” this descriptive content analysis examines the representations of author gender, author race/ethnicity, protagonist race/ethnicity, protagonist socioeconomic status, and genre of the 100 National Book Award finalists and 20 winners from 1996 to 2015. The data set indicated that there are problematic representations of race/ethnicity, and the National Book award is not as diverse as we have expected. Of the 23 culturally relevant texts in the National Book Award, only 5 are winners. The results of this study show that using only award lists to guide teachers’ book selections is problematic.

Keywords

Diversity, Young Adult Literature, BookAwards, Culturally, Relevant, Pedagogy

Language

eng

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