A Content Analysis of Popular Children's Literature Featuring Black Protagonists

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

Children begin expressing racial biases early in development (Raabe & Beelmann, 2011) and such biases have negative consequences for children of color (Trent et al., 2019). Children’s most robust biases are directed towards Black individuals (Dunham et al., 2007). Given these findings, both researchers and laypeople have suggested multicultural children’s literature – which features the unique lives, perspectives, and emotions of people from diverse backgrounds – as a tool to reduce children’s racial bias. In line with this suggestion, books featuring Black characters have been used in several recent intervention efforts to reduce children’s racial biases (e.g., Brown et al., 2018; McKeown et al., 2017) and are currently a top-selling category on Amazon.com. In spite of this growing enthusiasm, no work to date has systematically evaluated the thematic categories and linguistic content of popular children’s books featuring Black protagonists. Yet, assessing the content of children’s literature featuring Black characters can help us understand the messages to which children are exposed and could also facilitate research on using books to improve children’s racial attitudes. To address this gap in research, the current project systematically investigated the content of popular books featuring Black protagonists. We identified the thematic categories into which these books fall, examined the language books used to talk about racial differences, and determined whether race of the author influenced how race was discussed. Two independent coders analyzed the content of Amazon.com’s top 100 sold children’s books featuring Black protagonists. Results revealed four primary types of books: 1) literature featuring the daily life of an African American character (e.g., Jabari Jumps), 2) historical accounts of prominent figures or events in African American history (e.g.,Hidden Figures), 3) moral stories related to race (e.g., I Walk with Vanessa), and 4) literature celebrating Blackness or diversity more generally (e.g., Shades of Black). Of these typologies, literature that featured daily life (38.9%) and historical accounts (36.1%) were the most frequent, followed by literature that celebrated diversity (18.5%) and taught moral lessons (6.5%). The majority of books utilized language that appreciated (e.g., “racial differences make us unique”), rather than ignored (“race does not matter”), racial differences. Furthermore, compared with Black and biracial authors, White authors were more likely to utilize language that ignored race. Future research will investigate the role of the different book features we identified in the present research on children’s racial attitudes and will also examine whether different kinds of books appeal to families from different racial backgrounds.

Authors

• Nicole Huth, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author

• Katharine Scott, Northwestern University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Meredith Bone, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Non-Presenting Author

• Olivia Moens, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Non-Presenting Author

• Patricia G. Devine, University of Wissonsin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin Shutts, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Non-Presenting Author