Reimagining Realities: Diversity and Representation in Children’s Literature
Reimagining Realities: Diversity and Representation in Children’s Literature
Education: CLIPPINGS
Date: Thursday 05 December 2024
Time: 16:00 - 18:00
Venue: 213 St Andrew’s Building
Category: Public lectures
Speaker: Farrah Serroukh, Darren Chetty, and Karen Sands-O’Connor
Website: www.tickettailor.com/events/universityofglasgow23/1440645
Talk 1: Reflecting Realities in the Book Corner
Speaker: Farrah Serroukh
Farrah Serroukh, Research and Development Director at CLPE, will discuss the rationale and context that informed the initiation of CLPE’s annual Reflecting Realities Survey. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn more about the findings by contemplating the implications of the headline figures, as well as the patterns and insights from the qualitative data generated. Through the exploration of the data and themes attendees will be introduced to key considerations for determining some of the defining features of high quality ethnically representative and inclusive literature. In considering what it means to reflect realities within children’s literature, the session will touch on the implications for classroom book stock and provision.
Bio: Farrah Serroukh is the Research and Development Director at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE). Throughout her career, Farrah has always been committed to amplifying marginalised voices and keenly advocated for inclusive practices both within and outside of the education sector. She is responsible for leading on the research and development strand of CLPE’s work which informs the design, development, and delivery of the charity’s professional development programme. She is the author of the CLPE’s annual Reflecting Realities Survey and leads on the ground-breaking and award-winning work in this area.
Talk 2: Inside, Outside and Beyond the Secret Garden: Racial Diversity in Children’s Literature from the ‘Classics’ to Now
Speakers: Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor
British children’s literature has traditionally been coded as being by, for and about white people. Racial hierarchies established and strengthened during the British Empire, when children’s books became cheaper and more widely available, became normalised throughout British society, including in books for young people. However, the centrality of the white character did not mean that other people were not represented. This conversational lecture discusses the ways that British Empire children’s literature depicted Black and Brown people—and why and how those depictions still matter.
Bios: Dr Darren Chetty is a Welsh Indian South African Dutch writer, and a specialist in Philosophy for /with Children (P4/wC). He teaches at University College London, having taught in primary schools for over twenty years. He contributed to the best-selling book The Good Immigrant (Unbound) with a chapter entitled ‘You Can’t Say That! Stories Have to Be About White People’. For younger readers, Darren co-authored, with Jeffrey Boakye, What Is Masculinity? Why Does It Matter? And Other Big Questions (Wayland) and contributed to The Mab: Eleven Epic Stories from the Mabinogi, edited by Matt Brown and Eloise Williams. Darren has previously judged the Blue Peter, YA, CLiPPA, The Week Junior, The Little Rebels, and BookTrust Lifetime Achievement awards. He provided training for the Carnegie judges and advises on the CLPE Reflecting Realities and Penguin / Runnymede Trust Lit in Colour projects. His first picture book I’m Going To Make A Friend, illustrated by Sandhya Prabhat, will be published in the UK and US in 2025.
Professor Karen Sands-O’Connor is a visiting professor in the school of education at the University of Sheffield. An internationally-recognised expert on Black British children’s literature, she works with national organisations, including the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE), the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and the British Library on issues of diversity. In 2022, she created the UK’s first major exhibition on children’s books and Black Britain, Listen to This Story!, which opened in Newcastle and is currently touring the UK. Her publications include British Activist Authors Addressing Children of Colour (Bloomsbury 2022), winner of the Children’s Literature Association Honor Book Award. She contributes to the CLPE’s Reflecting Realities reports and is developing a study centre in Diverse Children’s Literature. She was British Academy Global Professor of Children’s Literature between 2019-24 and spent a year as Leverhulme Fellow working with the UK’s National Centre for Children’s Books, Seven Stories.
Since 2018, Darren and Karen have written a regular column for Books for Keeps examining racially minoritised characters in children’s literature, entitled 'Beyond the Secret Garden'. A book based on the column will be published by the English Media Centre in 2025