How do teachers use picture books to draw on the cultural and linguistic diversity in their classrooms?

Blakeney-Williams, Marilyn; Daly, Nicola

doi:10.18296/set.0363

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…While the educators' teaching experience varied from less than five to close to 30 years, with some having several years' experience in culturally and linguistically diverse settings, they were not found to promote culturally responsive practice when using children's books. This is in contrast to the findings of Blakeney-Williams and Daly [39] who found that some experienced educators working in culturally and linguistically diverse education settings can promote inclusive practice even when using books that do not reflect diverse cultures and languages when they "help children to make connections between the ideas in picture books and their own worlds" [39] (p. 49). However, the educators in this study largely assumed shared understandings of all children and did not encourage or model the making of connections to the diverse lives and backgrounds of the children.…”

Section: Book Reading Practices: the "Othering" Of Those From Minority Backgroundscontrasting

confidence: 65%

“…Many of these educators also aim to assimilate children into the dominant culture, often viewing the children's own backgrounds as "burdens" or challenges and thus teaching about diversity can often be superficial or tokenistic [26,38]. In addition, some educators mistakenly believe that one book about a particular cultural group is adequate to portray that group's viewpoints and perspectives [39]. Such beliefs can influence the curriculum decisions made by educators thus potentially further contributing to practices that may unwittingly reinforce a perception of the dominant culture as being preferable or superior.…”

Section: Challenges In Addressing and Responding To Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, there is some evidence that some educators working in culturally and linguistically diverse settings and having a high level of cultural competence can still use books to teach in a culturally responsive way even when those books do not reflect diversity [39]. Ultimately, this suggests that interactions between pedagogical practices, children's literature and children's learning will depend, in part, upon educators' professional knowledge, their training, confidence, skills and judgements and the quality and relevance of the literature they share with children.…”

Section: Challenges In Addressing and Responding To Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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When Authenticity Goes Missing: How Monocultural Children’s Literature Is Silencing the Voices and Contributing to Invisibility of Children from Minority Backgrounds

Adam

2021

Education Sciences

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The importance of recognising, valuing and respecting a child’s family, culture, language and values is central to socially just education and is increasingly articulated in educational policy worldwide. Inclusive children’s literature can support children’s human rights and contribute to equitable and socially just outcomes for all children. However, evidence suggests many educational settings provide monocultural book collections which are counterproductive to principles of diversity and social justice. Further, that educators’ understandings and beliefs about diversity can contribute to inequitable provision and use of diverse books and to inequitable outcomes of book sharing for many children. This paper reports on a larger study investigating factors and relationships influencing the use of children’s literature to support principles of cultural diversity in the kindergarten rooms of long day care centres. The study was conducted within an ontological perspective of constructivism and an epistemological perspective of interpretivism informed by sociocultural theory. A mixed methods approach was adopted, and convergent design was employed interpret significant relationships and their meanings. Twenty-four educators and 110 children from four long day care centres in Western Australia participated. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, video-based observations, field notes, document analysis and a book audit. This study firstly identified that current book collections in kindergarten rooms of long day care centres promote mono-cultural viewpoints and ‘othering’ of minority groups through limited access to books portraying inclusive and authentic cultural diversity. Secondly, that educators had limited understandings of the role of literature in acknowledging and valuing diversity and rarely used it to promote principles of diversity, resulting in a practice of “othering” those from minority group backgrounds. The key challenges which emerged from the study concerned beliefs, understanding and confidence of educators about diversity and inclusion, and the impact of these on their approaches to promoting principles of diversity through the use of children’s books. This research contributes to discussion on the value of children’s literature in achieving international principles of diversity. These findings have important social justice implications. The outcomes of this study have implications for educators, policy makers, early childhood organisations and those providing higher education and training for early childhood educators.

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Section: Book Reading Practices: the "Othering" Of Those From Minority Backgroundscontrasting

confidence: 65%

Section: Challenges In Addressing and Responding To Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Challenges In Addressing and Responding To Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

When Authenticity Goes Missing: How Monocultural Children’s Literature Is Silencing the Voices and Contributing to Invisibility of Children from Minority Backgrounds

Adam

2021

Education Sciences

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“…According to Blakeney-Williams and Daly [43], teachers tend to choose picture books with strong personal resonance because it models students' personal engagement and attachment with books and conveys to students how important books can be in people's lives. Similarly, instructors in this interview cited personal interests as a major influence in selecting cultural-diversitythemed picture books.…”

Section: Teachers' Interestmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such a multifaceted systematic picture book selection process has been proved by other researchers as beneficial as it ensures that student engagement with these carefully selected picture books can be maintained at a high level. First, a teacher's enthusiasm for a book inspires his/her students to read the book and seek out other materials on the book's topics [43,[53][54][55]. When the book topic is on cultural diversity, students are likely to be motivated to search for more information about an unfamiliar culture.…”

Section: Multifaceted Considerations In Selecting Picture Booksmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evaluation of the Cultural Diversity Effect by Using Picture Books with a Preschool Teacher

Zhang

2022

Mobile Information Systems

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Cultural diversity is endorsed by many educators as a major teaching concept due to its significance for the achievement of social equity in education. Recently, the use of picture books to promote principles related to cultural diversity has become a rising trend in early childhood settings. This study examined Chinese preschool teachers’ attitudes toward using picture books to teach cultural-diversity-related topics and their reported practices. Seven preschool teachers from four institutions located in Shanghai, China were surveyed and semiinterviewed. The study identified three key findings: (1) teachers interpreted cultural diversity in a restricted way and were usually unaware of themselves teaching the concept of cultural diversity; (2) teachers adopted a multifaceted approach of selecting picture books used for teaching cultural diversity and conceived illustrations as the most important book selection criteria; and (3) teachers often supplemented picture book sharing with first-hand experiences. The study results have important implications for preschool teachers, curriculum designers, and organizations that provide training for preservice and in-service early childhood educators. The analysis results show that the proposed system has a great and positive impact on the early childhood education of students and is helpful for the teachers to teach cultural diversity-related topics to their students in an easy and effective way.

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Using picturebooks to support student teachers to address complex social justice issues in early childhood education settings

Daly,

Kelly-Ware

2024

Early Years

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How do teachers use picture books to draw on the cultural and linguistic diversity in their classrooms?

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

When Authenticity Goes Missing: How Monocultural Children’s Literature Is Silencing the Voices and Contributing to Invisibility of Children from Minority Backgrounds

When Authenticity Goes Missing: How Monocultural Children’s Literature Is Silencing the Voices and Contributing to Invisibility of Children from Minority Backgrounds

The Evaluation of the Cultural Diversity Effect by Using Picture Books with a Preschool Teacher

Using picturebooks to support student teachers to address complex social justice issues in early childhood education settings

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