Reading stories about diverse characters has benefits for all students. Students of color perform better when they see themselves accurately represented, and white students learn about the world as it really is—a complex multi-cultural place.
A new report from the Education Trust, however, shows that those stories are few and far between. Although there have been improvements in character representation in recent years, the literary world that students experience is still predominantly white. And when characters of color are depicted, it is often as one-dimensional stereotypes, cut off from their cultural contexts. As debates over how students should learn about race heat up and K-12 schools ban more and more books, it’s an increasingly urgent concern.
As might be expected, those largely white authors created largely white characters, 34%, to be exact. The next two largest groups were Black characters and non-human characters such as animals, each representing 16%. But the way that non-white characters were portrayed deepened the problem.
Ed Trust found that only 53% of characters of color received full, complex portrayals, depicting them as multidimensional people with agency, capable of exerting positive influence. According to Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall, former Ed Trust P-12 director of practice and co-author of the report, this represents an imbalance.
“You see white characters in the fullness of humanity,” she said. “So, every other character needs to be as well. If I’m a Black child, and I read about myself in a book, I need to read that I have agency over my life just like when I read about a white character.”
Portrayals of groups or cultures of color were little better, using stereotypes, depicting characters as disconnected from their cultures, and showing minoritized groups as less than or unequal to others. Over half of the books in the sample failed to avoid these traps.
