Graphic banner: the search for more complex racial and ethnic representation in grade school books

Introduction

The Tool for Representational Balance in Books was created to provide curriculum publishers a framework for closely reviewing the books that make up curricular units so they may better understand how people, groups, and topics are represented. We have adapted this tool for general use by anyone, including students, parents, teachers, and community members interested in understanding what representation looks like across materials given to students. Representation has long been imbalanced in school curriculum. Groups of people that have been historically (and perpetually) marginalized in society are often invisible or negatively portrayed in the books students read.[1] Representational balance refers to a curriculum that reflects the complex and rich diversity of young people, groups, and social topics in the United States. Representational balance is a necessary component of what makes for high-quality instructional materials (HQIM). Students are more positively engaged in learning processes when materials act as mirrors and include people they can relate to, who have similar life experiences and social identities.[2] Students also benefit from exposure to materials that act as windows into the living experiences, perspectives, cultures, languages, and values of others. These forms of curriculum engagement invite students into learning and set them up for critical analysis—an alternative to materials that alienate students through their absence or stereotype threat. This tool is guidance for deep discussion and is not at all meant to produce a summative assessment of the value of a book, nor is it meant to provide justification for removing or censoring a book. We stand firm with the idea that what students need is more, not less — more information, more context, more diversity, more opportunities for making their own determinations about what is and is not valuable to them.

Domains of Representational Balance

The Tool for Representational Balance in Books consists of four domains and 10 criteria outlined in the table below. The domains position users of this tool to consider the identities of authors, illustrators, and people represented within the book, as well as the nuances with which people, groups, and historical and social topics are represented within the book. Each of the 10 criteria that make up domains II—IV has its own rubric, indicators, and examples that the user can apply to the book. Definitions of key terms accompany each of these rubrics. Users of the tool are expected to assess each book across the 10 criteria and then discuss the indicators they chose and the reason for those choices. This discussion can then inform how the user introduces the book to students, the kinds of questions that will best prompt deep thinking by the students, and any appropriate supplemental materials that will encourage deep thinking by the students.

Domain I:
Creator and Character Identity Who are the storytellers, and whose stories are being told?
Domain II:
People How are historically marginalized people included?
Domain III:
Groups How are historically marginalized groups included?
Domain IV:
Topics How are historical and social topics presented?
Are historically marginalized people positively influential?
1. Are historically marginalized people multidimensional?
2. Do historically marginalized people have agency?
3. Are historically marginalized people positively influential?
4. Are historically marginalized groups represented without stereotypes?
5. Are historically marginalized people immersed in groups and cultures?
6. Are historically marginalized groups presented positively or as having assets?
7. Are multiple groups portrayed as equally valuable?
8. Are historical and social topics presented without sanitization?
9. Do historical and social topic presentations include historically marginalized perspectives?
10. Is there a connection between historical and social topics presentations and the real experiences of students?

People

How are historically marginalized people included?

Multidimensionality

Are historically marginalized people multidimensional ?

Indicators and Examples:

The person is not given a historically marginalized identity

The person has no or limited description and does not change

In Summer Sun Risin’, a boy narrates the day’s activities on a family farm. Although there is description of activities and surroundings, none of that description provides insight into the narrator’s emotions or perspectives or the potential for change or character development.

The person is described, or they undergo change

In Doña Flor: A Tall Tale About a Giant Woman with a Great Big Heart, Doña Flor is a giant figure who is described and conducts major decisions with consequences for the people around her, but she does not undergo change through the course of the story. She is a static character.

The person is described, and they undergo change

In Digging for Words: José Alberto Gutiérrez and the Library He Built, the love José Alberto Gutiérrez has for reading is described in a way that highlights his emotions and motivations. One example of change is when the author describes the time José picked up Anna Karenina, which sparked his interest and love for reading.

Agency

Do historically marginalized people have agency ?

Indicators and Examples:

The person is not given a historically marginalized identity

The person does not conduct major decisions or actions

In Niño Wrestles the World, the character Niño does not conduct any major decisions or actions, and that is expected of some stories that do not feature a traditional story structure or the points of conflict that would support plot development.

The person conducts major decisions or actions with consequences only for themselves

The story of Daring Amelia follows Amelia Earhart’s journey from a childhood interest in planes to her infamous final flight. Although the text describes her major decisions, and her barrier-breaking flights, there is no description of how those actions affected others. This is only implied by the idea that she is famous and the first woman to meet several achievements.

The person conducts major decisions or actions with consequences for others

In Ojiichan’s Gift, the character Mayumi’s grandfather teaches her how to garden as a child. Once the grandfather is no longer able to care for his own garden, Mayumi creates a small, bento-box-sized garden that he can carry around with him, which brings him great joy.

Influence

Are historically marginalized people positively influential ?

Indicators and Examples:

The person is not given a historically marginalized identity

The person is primarily described by their deficits, or they have a negative role in major decisions or actions

Juan Bobo in Juan Bobo Goes to Work is described as a bumbling boy whose mistakes unexpectedly have positive results. Juan Bobo makes decisions that affect others, but those decisions are steeped in a negative portrayal of Juan Bobo’s intellect. Any positive influence he has is by chance.

The person is described neutrally, or they are absent from major decisions or actions

In Landed, the character Sun is held at Angel Island, San Francisco in accordance with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. The major decisions of the story, including Sun’s immigration, are not shown to be Sun’s. For example, it is Sun’s family that decides Sun will travel to the United States, where his father is, once he is deemed old enough.

The person is primarily described by their assets, or they have a positive role in major decisions or actions

Vashti in The Dot is an example of a character that may be described as negative at one point in a story, but who is positioned to undergo a change that is positive and asset-based. Although Vashti is first characterized as rebellious and disengaged, her assets and strengths are ultimately highlighted once she finds interest in her art.

Groups

How are historically marginalized groups included?

Stereotypes

Are historically marginalized groups represented without superficiality?

Indicators and Examples:

The text or its images include forms of superficial representation (e.g., stereotypes, counterstereotypes, tokenism, marginalizing tropes)

One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia is a story of Isatou and other Wolof women who turn plastic bags into beautiful purses to sell. Although Isatou is ultimately shown to be skillful in turning plastic bags into purses, there are frequent descriptions that portray her and others as ignorant—of plastic, of its harms, of how to crochet, and the ignorance of those who doubted her that the purses would be profitable. The community is shown as neglectful, as though they would be comfortable living amongst piles of trash if not for Isatou deciding to make a change.

The text and its images do not include forms of superficial representation (e.g., stereotypes, counterstereotypes, tokenism, marginalizing tropes)

Love That Dog is a free verse piece from a boy who grows to appreciate poetry over time through the course of writing poems for class. The story does not include forms of superficial representation, though importantly, the author does not describe any historically marginalized groups.

Immersion

Are historically marginalized people immersed in groups and cultures?

Indicators and Examples:

The text does not include groups or cultures that are given a historically marginalized identity

There is no description connecting a historically marginalized person to culture

The Paper Crane features a Chinese restaurant owner and a Chinese guest who gifts the owner a paper crane as payment for his meal. The author, Molly Bang, writes elsewhere that this story is adapted from a collection of Chinese “folktales” she read. However, the culture that inspired the story is removed and left without direct mention or reference in the book. Culture becomes implied and the only shared practice amongst people is dancing, which is shared by anyone who dines at the restaurant. The practice is centered on the crane and not on an identifiable group of people.

There is description connecting a historically marginalized person to culture, but the description does not extend to other people

The story, Harriet Tubman: Follow the North Star, provides some description of Harriet Tubman and her incredible work leading people who were enslaved to the North, but people who were enslaved are not described sharing in any practices with Harriet—they are written as the objects of her work and her story.

There is description connecting a historically marginalized person to culture, and the description extends to other people to present a group with a shared culture

A Tale of Two Seders is the story about the celebration of Seder told through the perspective of a girl whose parents have divorced. As the narrator processes the consequences of the divorce, she also describes activities, traditions, and the value of Seder to her and her family, and her evolving meaning of the concept of family.

Assets

Are historically marginalized groups presented positively or as assets ?

Indicators and Examples:

The text does not include a historically marginalized group

A historically marginalized group is portrayed negatively or as a deficit

The predominant impression on the reader of Sudanese culture in A Long Walk to Water(a story about Salva, a lost boy’s escape from conflict to the United States) is one of deficiency. There are positive aspects of shared knowledge, of community, of the protection of one another, but these are often emphasized as individual acts against a backdrop of collective helplessness. The author makes a point to highlight that Salva’s strength is inspired not by the behaviors and values that he shares with other Sudanese or Dinka people, but by that which makes him distinct from them—his belonging to a family highly regarded and privileged in their community.

A historically marginalized group is portrayed without explicit or implicit judgement

In A Story, A Story: An African Tale, the reader is told a story of the Akan deity Ananse and how he gains all the world’s stories from the Sky God. Though the depiction reproduces marginalizing tropes of African peoples, groups shown in the story are not presented through assets or deficits—the people that are depicted are passive observers of a story of godlike figures, even shown as faceless on multiple occasions.

A historically marginalized group is portrayed positively or as an asset

Rain School is a story about schoolchildren in Chad who have to rebuild their school each year. The story is an example of how an effort to highlight the strengths of a group of people can depend on stereotypes and a reductive single story. Despite that limitation, culture is framed through an asset-based lens, where the values and practices that people share enhance and broaden that which individual people could not otherwise do alone.

Value

Are multiple groups portrayed as equally valuable?

Indicators and Examples:

The text does not include groups or cultures that could be considered marginalized

A group is portrayed as less than, subordinate to, or dependent upon another

Tut’s Mummy Lost… and Found is a book that focuses on Howard Carter and his uncovering of King Tut’s tomb. The language establishes a juxtaposition between the Egyptians, who had stopped having the beliefs of their ancestors and “forgot” where Tut was buried, and European tourists who were interested in that history. The focus on British archeologist Howard Carter reflects a form of White saviorism, Howard Carter saved key knowledge from an Egyptian neglect of their culture and history.

The text focuses on a single historically marginalized group, or multiple groups are portrayed without a clear relationship to one another

Maus I focuses on the variance of individuals that nonetheless shared Jewish cultural identity and beliefs, who varied in their responses to Nazi occupation and Jewish genocide. This is accomplished without establishing a hierarchy between groups or cultures.

Multiple groups, including a historically marginalized group, are portrayed in relationship to one another and as equally valuable

Harvesting Hope focuses on the story of Cesar Chavez. There is some presentation of Mexican-American cultural practices, but the primary group presented in the story is Latino migrants and the cultural practice of labor organizing. Through the story of the struggle for labor rights, the book author asserts the equal value of Latino migrants with other worker groups.

Topics

How are historical and social topics presented?

Sanitization

Are historical and social topics presented without sanitization?

Indicators and Examples:

A reader would not reasonably recognize a historical or social topic in the text

Are Trees Alive? was written for a purpose related to environmental issues: helping the reader see trees as valuable. However, the focus of the text and images is only on the value of trees, not with any issues associated with the endangerment of species, environmental harm, the social consequences of deforestation, etc.

A reader would reasonably recognize a historical or social topic in the text and is presented with a version that has been sanitized

The author of The Legend of the Bluebonnet takes a Comanche story and repurposes it. In the author’s note, the author discusses his interest in the Comanche people in a way that sanitizes conflict and genocide by saying, “it became impossible for these brave people to share the land with the settlers and they were expelled or had to flee.”

A reader would reasonably recognize a historical or social topic in the text and is presented with a version that has not been sanitized

The Water Walker tells the true story of Josephine Mandamin and her fellow Ojibwe Mother Earth Water Walkers who raised awareness about pollution by walking around the of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River every spring for seven years while praying and singing (as well as conducting through other forms of activism and media outreach). The text does not minimize the harm of pollution or hide the responsibility of factories and oil pipelines.

Perspective

Do historical and social topic presentations include historically marginalized perspectives ?

Indicators and Examples:

The creator presents a topic but does not include a historically marginalized perspective
Pilgrims: A Nonfiction Companion to Magic Tree House #27 discusses pilgrims without including the context or perspective of Native Americans. The book does not identify or suggest the importance of an understanding of pilgrim colonization through the Native American perspective.

The creator does not present any historical or social topics, or topics are included with ambiguity

Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon implies a social topic related to how people should treat one another in society, but that potential for the presentation as a social topic is narrowed on the value of individual self-esteem. It is not clearly presented as commentary on “how things ought to be.”

The creator presents a historical or social topic, and it is presented through a historically marginalized perspective

In The Great Kapok Tree, the topic of deforestation is presented through the perspective of a group of animals and a boy from the Yanomamo tribe. The topic is oversimplified and dependent on superficial representation but is presented through the perspective of the animals and a boy harmed by deforestation.

The creator presents a historical or social topic through multiple perspectives, including a historically marginalized perspective

The Last Straw: Kids vs. Plastics is an informational text focused on how plastic is consumed and what young people have done around the world in response to that consumption. The author highlights varied perspectives and contexts through vignettes of young people.

Connection

Is there a connection between historical and social topics presentations and the real experiences of students?

Indicators and Examples:

The creator presents a historical or social topic as solved, as an issue exclusively of the past, or as an individual problem

Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans uses clear language to describe difficult and encouraging moments of Black history, without sanitizing that history. Yet, the text does not situate that history in broader throughlines or connect that history to the present.

The creator does not present any historical or social topics, or topics are included with ambiguity

Rap a Tap Tap: Here’s Bojangles—Think of That! is based on the entertainment of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, but the text does not indicate that the book’s character is based on a real person or is in any way historical. The character, Bojangles, “danced through a place people called the skids,” on one page with an image of people warming by a fire in a barrel and being given food in front of a church. Yet this is just one of the many places Bojangles dances past, without any discussion of the circumstances of the people pictured. The book is ambiguous in terms of historical or social topics.

The creator presents a historical or social topic as complex, as an issue of the past and present, or as linked to structures like laws and events

Follow the Moon Home: A Tale of One Idea, Twenty Kids, and a Hundred Sea Turtles describes the efforts of school children to change a town’s rules to save loggerhead turtles. The story grounds the activism of students to specific actions and the pressure those actions placed on systems. An afterword guides readers through the specific steps they can take to make changes in their own communities.

 

 

 

Definitions

Description

The person is described if the author describes or implies through text or illustration an internal or psychological aspect of character (e.g., emotions, beliefs, perspectives, motivations, etc.) that helps the reader understand this person as an individual (e.g., an aspect of character that will follow them across situations, that reflects continuity; “she was meticulous”).

Change

Change builds on description, in that internal, continuous aspects of character change as the story develops (e.g., dynamic characterization).[3]

Major Decisions or Actions

Major decisions (or actions) would change the developing story if they were removed. The decision (or action) is “major” because it has an effect beyond the singular instance; it “ripples” and contributes to a drive toward the plot’s climax (or toward a climax in a subplot).

Consequences

Consequences are the observable effects of major decisions (or actions).

Deficits

The connotative aspect of a person’s, group’s, or culture’s description that is primarily negative or that emphasizes flaws, such as weaknesses, obstacles, uncertainty, ignorance, etc.

Assets

The connotative aspect of a person’s, group’s, or culture’s description that is primarily positive or that emphasizes assets, such as strengths, talents, knowledge, etc.

Positive Role

The positive influence a person has on other people, their environment, situations, general story development, and major decisions or actions. For example, the person may support the growth of others, serve as a heroic figure, or identify solutions when conflict arises.

Negative Role

The negative influence a person has on other people, their environment, situations, general story development, and major decisions or actions. For example, the person may impede the growth of others, serve as a villainous figure, or complicate solutions when conflict arises.

Stereotypes

Widely held oversimplifications that undermine the complex attributes of a group’s membership.

Counterstereotypes

“Polar opposites” to stereotypes that depend on and often perpetuate widely held simplifications.

Tokenism

The superficial inclusion of an individual from a distinct group.

Marginalizing Tropes

Commonly recurring literary devices, motifs, or cliches that perpetuate a widely held oversimplification, particularly in lieu of complex representation. Myriad examples include the “brown-skinned child,” the “disposable woman,” or the use of anthropomorphism in children’s books.

Culture

The “[…] behaviors and values that are learned, shared, and exhibited by a group of people.”[4] The behaviors and values (also knowledge and perspectives) that are shared by members of a group, and sharing is clearly communicated by the author or illustrator.

Connecting Description

Description (textual or visual) that demonstrates that the person shares in the behaviors, values, knowledge, or perspectives that are also shared amongst other members of a group.

Historical and Social Topics

  1. Descriptions that tell the story of people broadly (the “what” or the “what was” of human relationships or with the world in which we live, i.e., environmental concerns).
  2. Descriptions that make implicit or explicit assertions about human relationships (the “how” or “how things ought to be” for human relationships, e.g., a story that implies Sudanese villages with limited clean water supplies can be saved through the intervention of relief organizations).

Sanitization

Presenting a historical or social topic in a way that appears to have unpleasant, undesirable, or unfavorable aspects removed, hidden, or minimized.[5]

Perspective

A frame for processing and understanding topics that an author or illustrator presents to the reader, often through people (or narration).

Solved

Implicitly or explicitly asserting that social or historical issues have been resolved or are exclusively linked to the past with no influence on the present.

Individual

Implicitly or explicitly asserting that social or historical issues are the problem of or are solved by individuals (e.g., a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” narrative).

  1.  Thomas, D., & Dyches, J. (2019). The hidden curriculum of reading intervention: A critical content analysis of Fountas & Pinnell’s leveled literacy intervention. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 51(5), 601-618.
  2. Armstrong, A. L. (2021, December 1). The representation of social groups in U.S. educational materials and why it matters: A research overview. New America. https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/the-representation-of-social-groups-in-u-s-educational-materials-and-why-it-matter/
  3. Baldick, C. (2015). Characterization. In The Oxford dictionary of literary terms(4thed.). Oxford University Press.
  4. Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 8(1), 69-91.
  5. Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Sanitize. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sanitize