Diversity in Youth Lit: Researching Representation

Start here!

Since 1985, the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) has been collecting diversity statistics on children's books, shedding light on representation trends in literature for young readers. The illustration above highlights the most recent statistics collected.

The CCBC’s work builds on the foundation laid by earlier scholars. Rudine Sims Bishop’s influential article "Windows, Mirrors, and Sliding Glass Doors," emphasized the importance of seeing oneself and others in stories, and the Council on Interracial Books for Children (CIBC), provided critical reviews of multicultural literature.

Today, organizations like We Need Diverse Books continue these efforts, driving conversations around authenticity and inclusivity in literature. As we look to the future, it's crucial to extend these diversity initiatives beyond books and into other media forms, ensuring all content reflects the diverse world we live in.

Step-By-Step Search Strategy:

• Choose the culture group to research.
• From the library homepage (https://library.appstate.edu/) "Search articles & more" using the following template:
  • representation AND picture book AND [culture group]
  • see image below for example

• Examine and refine what you have found:
  • Browse through the resources and read the abstracts of related articles.  Are the search results relevant?
    • If yes, note the subject, keyword, or descriptor terms.  You can use those in another search.
    • If no, tweak your search using newly identified terms.
    • Note: you can see the entire abstract or summary by selecting "Page Options" and "Detailed" in the upper right corner.

• Search Google Scholar using a good fit article or text that you have found.
  • From the library homepage (https://library.appstate.edu/) select Google Scholar.
  • Type the title of the resource you found in the box. See below for an example.

• Below the article in Google Scholar select the blue "cited by" link. This link will show the resources that have cited your title in the reference list.

• Browse this list to find additional resources.

Diverse BookFinder’s explore our data page describes how the data they collect on diverse books is categorized and used to highlight trends in publishing. This page can provide you with an idea of how you might categorize and code the data you find in your research analysis project.