Reading into Racism : Bias in Children's Literature and Learning Materials. PDF
Preview Reading into Racism : Bias in Children's Literature and Learning Materials.
Reading into racism Routledge Education Books Advisory editor: John Eggleston Professor of Education University of Warwick Reading into racism Bias in children’s literature and learning materials Gillian Klein ROUTLEDGE London and New York First published 1985 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © Gillian Klein 1985 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Klein, Gillian Reading into racism: bias in children’s literature and learning materials 1. Racism in text-books I. Title 370.19 ISBN 0-415-05881-3 (Print Edition) Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Klein, Gillian. Reading into racism. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Racism in text-books. 2. Text-book bias. 3. Children’s literature. I. Title. LB3045.64.K57 1985 371.3’2 85–8077 ISBN 0-415-05881-3 ISBN 0-203-07670-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-16256-0 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-05881-3 (Print Edition) Contents Introduction vii 1 What is a biased book? Recognition and responses 1 2 Negative bias—does it matter? 10 3 Oh, but you’re different 30 4 Issues in fiction 44 5 Issues in World Studies 57 6 Bias in materials in other areas of the curriculum 75 7 The cumulative and the concealed: curriculum implications 92 8 Strategies for Combat I: Sanitize or sensitize? 108 9 Strategies for Combat II: Censorship or selection? 123 10 Conclusions: The watershed 141 Bibliography 148 Further reading 157 List of organizations 159 Author and citation index 161 Subject index 164 To Leanne For whom books have always been important Introduction Prejudice in print is not new. Nor is concern about it, especially in relation to children. In the contemporary societies of Europe and North America, however, confronting the issues of racism leads to a new reappraisal of children’s literature and learning materials. This book identifies some of the forms that racism takes in literature and learning materials and illustrates ways in which the school curriculum may be affected and children’s minds may be conditioned. It records some of the current approaches to racist materials for children and some of the strategies for combat that have proved effective. It describes initiatives by parents and communities, by teachers and librarians, by publishers and those working in the media, that actively challenge biased materials and raise the consciousness of children and those who work with them. It is hoped that all who work with children or are training to do so will see the book as being directly relevant to the ways in which they use books and learning aids with children. So many people have helped me to put this book together that I can only thank them all collectively here. My thanks also go to those on whose research and writing I have drawn freely, and who will find themselves acknowledged both in the text and in the list of recommended reading. In recording the changes which may have resulted from these earlier writings I hope this book may itself be an instrument of further change. I would like to thank Jessica Yates for pointing out a number of errors; I have taken the opportunity of this reprint to correct them. Gillian Klein, September 1986 Chapter 1 What is a biased book? Recognition and responses Mary Kingsley did more than study cannibals…she tried to change British ideas about the way Africans should be governed. She did a great deal towards securing justice for these backward races. (from Reading On, Red Book One. Oliver & Boyd. First published 1958, eleventh impression 1975.) There is no such thing as an unbiased book. Every communication expresses the views of the individual or group of individuals making them. In the case of books (a word I shall from now on use to subsume other published materials such as cassettes, films, slides, videos, wallets of photographs, posters etc), those views are fixed in aspic for all who dip at any time in the future into that particular confection. Much writing is candidly subjective: the author and the audience have both accepted subjectivity as being part—often a valued part— of the package. Writers like Buchi Emecheta or James Baldwin are actually exposing their subjective experiences and views, offering their vulnerability as a gift, a gift that at its best converts to insights on the part of their readers: ‘yes, it’s been like that for me, too’ or ‘now I can begin to understand how it must have been for them’. Great authors let us look out of their eyes as well as our own; how they see the world is a product of their own personalities, experiences and environments. Which is why Othello and Shylock are skilfully drawn stereotypes of other races as regarded by a sixteenth-century Englishman. Works of literature It is also why one position taken on the debate on literary bias is that great literature is above or beyond such criticism. This is a 1
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