Children need to see themselves in their reading material: parental perspectives on the importance of ethnically and culturally diverse reading material

Abstract

To support children's engagement with reading material, it is important children are represented in reading material provided. As Parents are the curators of their child's reading diet, in this study the parental perspectives of the ethnic diversity of available reading material for their children was explored. Eight parents were interviewed individually online to explore their perceptions of diversity in their children's reading books. Interview scripts were analysed taking a reflexive thematic analysis approach. There was a commonality across all parents in that children's literature needed to represent the multicultural society their child lived in, but the emotional and personal content in this message differed between parents. To explain the data two themes of identify formation and ethnic diversity limitations of reading material are discussed. Identity formation encapsulated the parents focus on children needing to see themselves in reading material to learn about themselves and their culture. Therefore, it is important to avoid stereotyping which is the second theme. All parents noted the need for more diversity broadly in children's reading material, from publishers but also availability of diverse reading material from educational settings.