ERIC Number: ED294943
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1988-Mar-30
Pages: 22
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Cultural Bias in Children's Storybooks: Implications for Education.
Timm, Joan S.
This study addresses concern about bias in educational materials for elementary school pupils. Children's storybooks were examined for the appearance of biases across the cultural categories of race, ethnicity, gender, age, socioeconomic level, religion, and environmental background. These biases included stereotyping, invisibility (omission of certain groups), imbalance, linguistic form, unreality, and fragmentation. A total of 727 cases of bias were found in 167 storybooks, with distinct variations in frequencies across both bias categories and cultural groups. Stereotyping and invisibility were most prevalent among bias categories. Gender, race, and ethnic discrimination were the most prevalent types. When the results of the study are considered as a whole, the educational lesson is that members of different cultural groups have limited opportunities and that they are not viewed as being equally valued by the society. In order to teach more constructing all forms of bias should be taken into account when teachers select reading materials for their pupils. (Author/VM)
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (New Orleans, LA, April 5-9, 1988).