Newbery Books Misrepresent Children with Disabilities
PROVO, Utah – Despite an increasingly positive portrayal of characters with disabilities in Newbery Award-winning books, there still is not an accurate representation of the nearly 7 million children with disabilities attending U.S. public schools, according to a study released by Brigham Young University professors of special education.
Professors Tina Dyches, Mary Anne Prater, Melissa Heath, and former graduate student, Melissa Leininger, published their study in the December issue of Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities. They studied Newbery Award and Honor books published in 1975 through 2009 and found that the representation of characters with disabilities is not proportionate to the current U.S. population of students with disabilities.
“We are hoping that this will be a call to authors,” Dyches said. “ We’ve got so many wonderful authors in the world and we would love to see more inclusive characterizations in high quality books, where kids with disabilities are being recognized for who they are and not just the limitations of their disabilities.”
"We would love to see more inclusive characterizations in high quality books, where kids with disabilities are being recognized for who they are and not just the limitations of their disabilities."
Along with an inaccurate representation of students with disabilities, the study also found a concerning theme of elimination of the characters with disabilities through death, being sent away or a discovery of a miraculous cure. In most cases, the character with the disability did not tell the story, and was often used in supporting roles that facilitated the emotional growth of other characters.
Prater and Dyches both have an interest and concern with the messages that are being sent to children through the books they read.
“We know that children learn a lot from models who are like them,” Dyches said.
“We’d like to see children with disabilities more accurately depicted and representative of what is found in schools. This includes portraying more individuals with learning and speech/language impairments.”
In 2006, Prater and Dyches published a similar study about the portrayal of characters with disabilities in Caldecott books. They found that many Caldecott Medal and Honor books could possibly give children an inaccurate view of what it is like to have a disability, reinforce negative stereotypes and underrepresent more prevalent disabilities.
“Students will be able to more fully understand disabilities and their classmates with disabilities if these characters are portrayed accurately in the best of children’s literature,” Dyches said.
10 January 2010
Read BYU News’ Coverage here.
It is not surprising that there is an underrepresentation of characters of both color and disability. Speaking as an author, publishers are hesitant to show characters of color in any light that might be construed to be “negative.” Thus, you rarely find a children’s picture book with a character of color who is the bully. In fact, the fear of offending someone is so great you’ll usually find characters who are bullying, or who have disabilities, represented by animals, along with all the other characters in the book. As for the “first person” again there is the fear of offense. For a white author to write in the first person as a character of color has been marked as “offensive” on more than one occasion (although several have done so with grace and heart). The same is often true of disabilities. Many members of the deaf community, for example, feel that those who are not deaf cannot accurately portray them. Both publishers and authors are often afraid to offend specific communities and thus those communities may end up under-represented. There’s no easy solution to this. There will always be those who take offense, and publishers are in the business to make money. Authors are caught in the middle, often willing to stretch the limits but unable to get books that do so published. I think this will always be a problem with the mainstream press, but you may see more diversity through those who self-publish in a digital format.
I have long ago dismissed the validity of the Newberry and Caldecott Awards. They claim to represent the finest quality of literature and graphics in children’s books, but in fact seem to demonstrate the social and politically correct agenda of the judges.
I think they’re making a mountain out of a molehill here. Good literature teaches us about humanity in general, and ourselves in particular. Good authors write well about that which they know best and may have experienced. If they haven’t experienced it, they probably will write about it with neither passion nor accuracy.
Trying to create characters and situations in proportion to how they appear in the general population is foolish and non-productive, a kind of affirmative action for the handicapped. I’m not convinced that juvenile readers are really going to be traumatized because certain groups aren’t represented properly.
Seriously? Yes, I can imagine that they are underrepresented, but you are seriously hinting that a book should be given awards based on topic instead of quality?
Did this study take into account that these awards stretch back decades (1922 for Newbery and 1937 for Caldecott), and that it is only in the past 20 – 30 years that society’s attitude towards those with disabilities has undergone a monumental shift? That the attitudes in these books represent the contemporary attitudes of when they were written? Did this study take into account that until 50 (or less) years ago, there were fewer minority writers writing about their culture (due to factors such as fewer educational opportunities, fewer opportunities to even be published, and fewer publishers willing to publish stories about minority cultures to name a few examples), let alone characters from their culture with disabilities; which would result in proportionally fewer novels about those topics being published? Heck, 40 years ago they would have had a hard time being published at all. We get into trouble when we don’t take into account outside factors in studies like these.
Have we as a society gotten to the point where we are more concerned about keeping everyone happy that we place political correctness above quality? Studies like this come dangerously close to telling writers what to write.
I have two children with autism. This article really struck me as odd. I am particularly disturbed by the need to portray those with severe disabilities as ‘abled’, or likening them unto more functional people such as Bill Gates or Einstein – for example. My children’s issues are disabling, and make their lives incredibly difficult. From eating a sandwich (dealing with textures) to trying to concentrate in the classroom when they can hear the refrigerator in the school kitchen kick on (even though it’s 2 flights down).
The call for literature that falsifies past attitudes or difficulties for individuals, is not a credit to them. Al Capone Does My Shirts is an excellent example of real trauma that a family might go through while trying to help a member with autism – in the best way they know how. The author had a sibling with autism, and the representation may not have made you want to go cuddle with the character, but it certainly came from that author’s reality.
As for getting published, good writing should be published. Not writing that addresses a void in the opinion of a University ‘think-tank’. If there is a demand for those types of books, they’ll be published… if the material is good.
In addition to publishing their data, and incredible interpretation of a need in society as a result… perhaps these Professors and students should follow the examples of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien… write the books you’d want to read if they’re not out there. Hope they are good enough to publish and create an audience…
But please hesitate to use data to tell society what we are missing in literature, and what WE need to do about it. Please don’t encourage misrepresentation of the grief and difficulties families endure.
http://autismmedia.org/media10.html – scroll down to Julie Duffield to watch the 4 video clips on our children’s medical issues. I can’t even get some of my family to care enough to find out what’s going on with my kids medically. Who would read a book about it?
I do question the data… do you include books where disabled are side characters, or only if they are a main character? Most of Orson Scott Card’s books include a disabled character. Were those included? Was it only books where the disabled character is in the description of the book?
I appreciate the sentiment, it’s well meaning, but I do disagree with the general interpretation of a community need in literature. I love to read, but I don’t have the need to read the story where the disabled individual is the quirky hero… but if it’s well written, I’ll endorse it well.
I hope you’ll check out my medical story and try to understand where I’m coming from.
The idea that literature should represent life accurately is ridiculous. Literature is to tell a story, sometimes with, but often without a moral. Its main purpose is usually entertainment. Think of what books your own children, or you when you were a child, loved. It is not because they accurately depict life; often it is because they distort it for a purpose. Think of Shel Silverstein’s books, for example, or nursery rhymes, or fairy tales. All are classics.
By the way, I have read and enjoyed many of the Newberry and Caldecott awarded books. But never because they were politically correct. I just like good writing.
I appreciate the dialogue that is occurring regarding our recently published article, and commend Melissa Leininger, lead author of the study and a former graduate student, for her thorough work on a topic that is rarely examined. As chair of Melissa’s graduate committee, I would like to respond to the questions that have been raised.
This examination of Newbery award and honor books spanned the years of 1975-2009 in order to look at trends of depictions of characters with disabilities since the passage of special education law which provided free and appropriate public education to children with disabilities. Our intention was to describe the portrayal of such characters in many ways, including personal portrayal (e.g., realistic, disabilities as well as abilities, character growth), exemplary practices (e.g., appropriate services, valued occupations), social interactions and relationships, and sibling relationships. We also investigated personal depictions such as the types of disabilities, age, and race/ethnicity of the characters of disabilities.
We only evaluated books on the Newbery list and not on other award lists, and we included both main and supporting characters with disabilities. We chose the Newbery books because they are widely recognized and available throughout the United States, and are used frequently in our schools. Other awards are available that recognize not only the literary quality of children’s books, but the representation of disabilities as well (e.g., Dolly Gray Children’s Literature Award, Schneider Family Book Award).
In a nutshell, we found that over time the portrayal of characters with disabilities is increasingly positive. Nevertheless, “positive” doesn’t necessarily mean the debilitating effects of the disabilities are minimized or ignored, but that families, school systems, and other community members recognize and accept the characters with disabilities as active, participating members in their communities (to the extent possible). Authors depict the lives of these characters realistically rather than idealizing or demonizing the disability. I agree with Dennis Doyle who wrote that good literature teaches about humanity in general and ourselves in particular, which includes individuals with disabilities. I think we’re seeing a trend where more quality books are being written by authors who have personal experience with disabilities, who write with passion and accuracy.
We also discovered the representation of Newbery characters with disabilities is not proportionate to the current U.S. population of students with disabilities. Like Teresa Bateman wrote, this result is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that racial representation portrayed in these books is not representative of the diverse students receiving special education services. Teresa raises a good point about writers’ and publishers’ fear of offending. I believe that many in the disability community would like to have people realize that it is not offensive to have a disability, that human differences are accepted and not merely tolerated or ignored. When we have a more inclusive society that accepts different ways of being, we won’t have to be so concerned about offending others. Although we as a society, I believe, are making good headway, we still have a long way to go.
If you want to read all of the details regarding this research, the article is available from this website: http://www.dddcec.org/publications.htm#ETDD.
Leininger, M., Dyches, T. T., Prater, M. A., & Heath, M. A. (2010). Newbery award winning books 1975–2009: How do they portray disabilities? Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 45(4), 583-596.
I don’t think that it is the authors’ intent to misrepresent disabled kids. There may be an author who reads about this and makes an effort to better represent children with disabilities.
Leave your response!
Contact Us
Recent Posts
Categories
Browse News
Search News
Departments
Staff
Recent Comments
Most Commented
McKay School Twitter Feed