‘Away with the fairies?’ Disability within primary‐age children's literature

Abstract

This article outlines the findings of a new study that explores the portrayal of disability within a sample of the primary-age children's literature most readily available to UK schools. The kind of literature to which children are exposed is likely to influence their general perceptions of social life. How disability is handled by authors is therefore important from the standpoint of disability equality. Findings suggest that whilst there are some good examples of inclusive literature 'out there', discriminatory language and/or negative stereotypes about disability continue to be present in a range of more contemporary children's books. Clearly, more still needs to be done to ensure that schools and teachers are provided with information relating to the best examples of inclusion literature and efforts must continue to be made to inform authors, publishers and illustrators about how to approach the issue of disability.

Inclusive education and the cultural representation of disability and disabled people within the English education system: the influence of electronic media in the primary school

“…Extant research indicates that negative conceptualisations may be formed by exposure to the ‘picture’ of disability created by parental attitudes (Deal, 2003), the media (Barnes, 1992), children's literature (Pederson, 2003), peer interaction (Shakespeare, 1994) and children's textbooks (Hodkinson, 2007). To be specific, Leicester (2007) suggests children's literature by absenting characters who are disabled, evokes a message that disabled people are less interesting and of less value than other members of our society (Beckett et al., 2010). Additionally, Hodkinson (2007) concluded that the representation of disability in school textbooks was limited and ‘infected with models of child deficit’ (Clough, 2005, p. 74).…”

“…A key success criterion for inclusion was that parents of children with special educational needs (SEN) and/or those who are disabled would have confidence that mainstream schools would provide high‐quality education and enable all pupils to become valued members of the school community (Department for Education and Science (DfES), 2004). In 2006, the Disability Equality Duty became the ‘stick’ which further ‘encouraged’ the evolution of inclusion as it created a legal framework so that schools were now compelled to discuss and confront harassment, stereotyping and discrimination as well as promoting positive attitudes towards disabled people (Beckett, Ellison and Barrett et al., 2010).…”

Constructing impairment and disability in school reading schemes

“…Hughes' research concluded that teachers still need to be much more selective as to which non-fiction books they incorporate into their classroom resources. Beckett et al's (2010) research demonstrates that in the twenty-first century representations of disability and impairment seemingly had changed little to those dominating the preceding century. Beckett's findings confirming those of Reiser and Mason (1992) denote that discriminatory language and negative stereotypes continue to be folded into representations of disability appearing in children's literature.…”

“…Despite this more positive work, it is interesting to note the study of Hughes (2006) AQ10 ¶ and Beckett et al (2010). Hughes' study examined the representation of visual impairment in six picture books designed for children aged 12 or under.…”

“…Leicester comments that such absence carries the message that disabled people are of less interest and value than other members of society (see Beckett, 2010 …”