Rereading the Past, Imagining Just Futures: Critically Historicizing Forced Displacement in Picture Books for Young Children

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Ten
  In Roundtable Session: Reimagining Futures: Culture and Literacy (Table 3)

Abstract

Picturebooks about children who seek refuge have potential to support critical global literacies (Yoon & Sharif, 2015), offer humanizing details of forced displacement, nurture understanding of geopolitical interconnectedness of countries, and develop a sense of shared responsibility for preventing and addressing forced displacement as a collective humanitarian crisis. Drawing from methods of critical multicultural analysis and critical content analysis, this study investigates how experiences of forced displacement and seeking refuge are depicted in 68 early childhood picturebooks for young children, specifically interrogating these narratives within their larger historical and sociopolitical contexts and considering implications for educators.

Authors

• Nora Peterman, University of Missouri - Kansas City
  Presenting Author

• Ekaterina Strekalova-Hughes, University of Missouri - Kansas City
  Presenting Author