A Journey of Service-Learning: Three Different Professional Lenses

University of East London is based in London Borough of Newham, one of the most diverse boroughs in Britain, with one of the highest levels of child poverty (ONS 2012, Campaign to End Child Poverty 2012). Trainee teachers on the Primary with English route investigated picture books to create a London Picture Books collection, inspired by a presentation by Dr Nicola Daly of University of Waikato. In semi structured interviews, six trainees explained why they had chosen particular books and how their thinking about representation in picture books had changed through carrying out the activity.

The present paper reports the findings of a study that sought to identify how diversity (in the form of disability, appearance, and race) is presented in children's books written in or translated into the Greek language. The study focused on the plots and the portrayal of key figures. The sample consisted of 50 children's books written after 1990 that focus on diversity and target children aged 6-12 years. Content analysis framed within the interpretative paradigm was undertaken, and this resulted in the formation of categories representative of the range of plots and character portrayals. The analysis revealed the following key themes: the key figure is presented as different from the group; the key figure is often only accepted through the mediation of another character who is not considered different or an incident; different figures belong together and not with the figures that belong in the dominant group; and the key figure is an excellent character who might also be brave and unique for several reasons. Taking these findings as a starting point, the paper seeks to place the discussion about children's books, diversity, and education in the literature, and it discusses teachers' role in developing students' critical literacy skills in order to engage in discussions about diversity without reproducing stereotypes or focussing on the Other.

Linking the Word and the World through Multicultural Literature The idea of linking the world of the classroom to the worlds of our students is nothing new in education. More than a hundred years ago educational pioneer John Dewey (1901) highlighted the importance of centering learning in the worlds of children. Throughout the 20th century scholars such as Paulo Freire of Brazil and Gloria Ladson-Billings in the United States encouraged educators to embed pedagogical practices in the existential experiences of students (Freire, 1970) and to create lessons that increased cultural competence amongst historically marginalized students (Ladson-Billings, 1994). When we are able to link the world of the classroom to the lives of students we increase motivation, engagement, achievement, and relevance and we promote active learning that stimulates curiosity, creativity, mutual understanding, and the social awareness needed to foster empathy, tolerance, and engaged citizenship. However, it isn't always so easy to translate these ideas into practice in the multi-faceted America of the 21st century. A world filled with languages and cultures and constantly changing demographics in our schools, but also a world filled with new technologies, new ways of acquiring and transmitting language that have radically changed the way we live. While it may seem intuitive to us in our everyday lives that the world is rapidly changing, we must also acknowledge that our discipline can often be resistant to these changes. That presents a tension between our ideas and our instincts and the mandates and standards that we live and work within. In this brief essay, we play out some of these contradictions and tensions as they relate to the teaching of multicultural literature as we play out what it has meant for us in our forty collective years of teaching and working with literacy teachers to link the teaching of literature to the worlds of our students. We talk about what this means in terms of the selection of the texts that we teach, the theory of reading that we promote, the writing we ask students to do, and finally how we link the lessons learned inside of the classroom to action in the world around us. How We Choose the Texts We Read We need a broader array of stories in our classrooms because children need to see themselves in the stories they read. As Henry Louis Gates said, we write ourselves into being (Gates, 1992). Through the stories we share we affirm ourselves and our existence as unique and varied as our existences may be. So, when we say that children need to see themselves in the stories that they read we mean that literally and figuratively. In a diverse selection students will see others who come from similar frames of reference culturally, geographically, ethnically, etc. But students should be able to identify across these simple markers to see those with whom they would have

International Journal of Progressive Education, 2019

This study aims to analyze pre-service teachers' opinions about children books through a literature circle (LC) approach in multicultural learning environments. The data of the present study were collected from the children literature course offered for preservice classroom teachers during the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 spring semesters at Hacettepe University. The preservice teachers (PSTs) in children iterature course read and responded to Newbery Award winning books both individually and in literature circle groups within a framework of critical literacy and reader response theories. The results of the current study revealed the deficiencies of the pre-service teachers in the process of critical reading and actualization in spite of their satisfactory interpretations of the events. In this study, the PSTs expressed their opinions for the "gaining an understanding of different perspectives on life in the world" and "the cultures of specific groups, developing the skills needed to take social action to eliminate social injustice" categories in all four children books. However, they did not share their opinons related to gain an awareness of own cultures and cultural backgrounds and obtain a recognition an understanding of global issues, learning how to reduce stereotyping, prejudice and racism within ourselves and within society" categories. This study may contribute to a variety of research fields including pre-service teacher education, multicultural education and literary studies.

2021

Cultural diversity, as one of the most important characteristics of European community in the framework of the DIALLS project (see Chapter 10.1007/978-3-030-71778-0_1 for overview), is integral to notions of cultural identity and cultural literacy. The acknowledgement of identity formation as an ongoing, dynamic process through interaction rather than a pre‐conceived characteristic arises as an imperative need, in order to encourage democracy to thrive through constructive confrontation and integration (Rapanta et al. in The Curriculum Journal, 2020). According to Bland, picturebooks that authentically reflect cultural diversity can move even young readers towards “flexibility of perspective” (CLELE Journal, 4(2):45, 2016). Bishop (Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6(3):ix–xi, 1990) highlights the need for young readers to recognise themselves in books they read, learn about the lives of other people, and be able to cross between groups and worlds. However, r...

2016

The aim of this research project is to explore how multicultural awareness can be taught to young learners through the use of picture books, as a way of constructing meaning and understanding of the world. With a foundation in theories by Gadamer, Spivak, Hunt, Nikolajeva and Edstrom the paper argues that literature provides an opportunity to teach values of diversity, empathy and acceptance. This work explores questions of epistemology and hermeneutics as well as the complexity of describing and understanding descriptions of characters from a culture other than the familiar. The focus in this particular part of the study is on the description of Sub-Saharan Africa. The fundamental paradigm behind the project is that multicultural understanding is made possible through identification with the other-if what is unknown is described in terms of similarities rather than differences. The project is a literary study based on literary analysis of characters, setting and themes as portrayed in text and illustrations. The study covers descriptions of a selection of example texts which are opening up for identification in the way it is based on features of childhood in common between cultures. Contrasting counter examples are also given. If teaching multicultural values in the primary school classroom we can educate against 'toxicities' such as stereotypes, prejudice and racism. Therefore literature should be used actively within the classroom of early learners, chosen by teachers out of an awareness pointed at in this paper and addressed by educators in teacher training.

2016

How do we help children develop their intercultural awareness, sensitivity and understanding inside the classroom? There are children’s stories putting on display the wonders of fashion, festivals, food and faith (the Four Fs) that show the vibrancy of other cultures. But at the centre of what cross-cultural understanding means is an awareness of one’s self. Seeing the self in the world and developing this new perspective is necessary for truly accepting the other. Inquiring into stories rich with visual representations of such perspectives is one valuable classroom strategy useful for developing children’s sense of self. In this article I will outline the notion of cognitive egocentrism in children and how it is a major barrier to overcome before truly understanding those of different cultures and I will discuss a particular picture book inquiry in detail that puts the theory into practice in a classroom setting.

Springer (eBook), 2021

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