Representing Racial Minorities in Children's Literature

Abstract

This dissertation explores the representations of racial minorities and particularly, African Americans in Anglophone children’s literature from the West. It discusses points to analyse children’s literature such as the heroes or relationships according to the actantial model by A.J. Greimas, the lifestyles or main themes present in the twelve books of the corpus, but also the illustrations examined according to different codes. The text-illustration relationships are also analysed with the help of concepts that determine the meaning between the text and the illustrations of each book displaying the outcome that authors and illustrators mostly follow a consistency. All these elements are analysed in terms of interculturality and/or intraculturality and their elements are introduced. This dissertation also discusses the books according to the ethnicity of the authors and illustrators, highlighting the fact that white authors focus their books on the inclusive aspect and therefore take an intercultural approach. By contrast, authors from racial minorities publish books that focus on the adventures of one or more children, with whom they usually identify, and give them a unique and special place in the story demonstrating intraculturality. The discussion and analysis highlight the interest in these representations in children’s literature that can be taught in English as a foreign language class to inform young teenagers about the importance of representing racial minorities adequately.