Publication Date
3-2024
Abstract
Researchers and educators have explored representations of people with marginalized identities in children’s picturebooks for over 30 years. Disability has not been widely acknowledged as a marginalized identity nor explored as an aspect of diversity prevalent in classrooms. In the United States, over seven million students are identified with a disability, and most will spend the majority of their school day in general education classrooms. Like other diverse students, they may not see their identities mirrored in classroom literature. Picturebooks featuring main characters with a disability are rare, and some still foreground medical models, limiting individuals with narrow, ableist notions that focus on what a person cannot do rather than what they can. The authors describe the development and teacher validation of the Strong Stories Framework, a brief, research-based evaluation tool designed for teachers to use to select picturebooks that exemplify high-quality literature while foregrounding strengths-based depictions of disability.
Recommended Citation
Hayden, H., & Prince, A. M. (2024). “Not a Stereotype”: A Teacher Framework for Evaluating Disability Representation in Children’s Picture Books. Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 63 (1). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol63/iss1/5
Included in
Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Disability and Equity in Education Commons, Early Childhood Education Commons, Elementary Education Commons, Language and Literacy Education Commons, Special Education and Teaching Commons, Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons
