Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T14:43:57.619Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

33 - Children’s Literature and the Construction of Contemporary Multicultures

from (II) - Framing New Visions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2019

Susheila Nasta
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London
Mark U. Stein
Affiliation:
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany
Get access

Summary

Given the UK’s increasingly ‘multicultural’ composition, the question of how cultural diversity is represented in literature written for children and young adults has been of enduring social and educational significance. This issue was first highlighted prominently with the publication of the 1985 Swann Report ‘Education for All’, which stressed the need for a curriculum that reflected the diversity of Britain’s population, and has been addressed in public discourse ever since. Creating new versions and offering new visions of society remains a key task in different genres for young readers: narrative, poetry, and picturebook. This chapter focuses on the works of selected writers noted for offering a wide array of cultural perspectives and a long-standing commitment to representing a diverse society. They work with a variety of strategies, ranging from bleakly realistic representations of individuals and communities to the use of speculative fiction pointing towards the narrowness of cultural categories. The black or Asian British child or young adult in these text is firmly placed and made visible in a society that is portrayed as an increasingly diverse cultural contact zone.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×