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Re: ccbc-net digest: March 29, 2013
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From: Patti Sinclair <trishsinclair_at_sbcglobal.net>
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2013 08:20:00 -0700 (PDT)
Sorry--my email was hacked and many people received a "Hey" message from my account with a dubious link. Patti Sinclair
_________=
_______________________ From: CCBC-Net digest =
To: ccbc-net digest recipients Sent: Sat, March 30, 2013 12:25:48 AM Subject: ccbc-net digest: March 29, 2013
CCBC-NET Digest for Friday, March 29, 2013.
1. STEM and Representation f ollow-up 2. CCBC-Net in April 3. hey!
----------------------------=
STEM and Represent ation follow-up From: Charles Bayless Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 14:14:58 -0400 X-Message-Number: 1
I have waited till the end of the month in order to not distract from the current discussion. I have a follow-up to last month's conversation regarding representation in children's literature. Recapping: The argument was advanced 1) that certain classes of children (race, gender, class, culture, orientation, etc.) are underrepresented in children's literature, 2) that this lack of representation creates a material negative impact on children, and 3) that the cause of such underrepresentation was conscious or unconscious discrimination on the part of the publishing industry.
The counterargument was that a) there is no objective empirical evidencethat documents the extent and degree of underrepresentation by group (not contesting that there likely was underrepresentation, only that there was no data to quantify it), b) that there is no empirical evidence supporting any impact of over or underrepresentation of traditional categorizations (race, gender, class, orientation, etc.) on life outcomes and much obvious evidence to the contrary, and c) that there was no evidence supporting discrimination on the part of the publishing industry.
In the spirit of March's STEM theme (science being the generation and testing of hypotheses with data) I have been able to source data from credible organizations (US Census, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, CCBC and the Kaiser Foundation) that allows a first order crack at answering argument element 1 (degree of representation). In doing so, that also begins to address argument element 3 (publishing industry discrimination). In order not to disrupt the CCBC monthly conversation, I have posted the methodology, details of analysis, and results at my blog, Thing Finder - Reading, Publishing, and Ethnicity
(http://thingfinder.blogspot.com/2013/03/reading-publishing-and-ethnicity.ht ml). Comments are welcome there.This analysis is only a first order estimate. It is always better to use data collected in a common controlled fashion than to use data from multiple sources. In the absence of any other evidence though, this is likely a reasonably robust first order effort.
The summary is that at a demographic level, all minority groups are underrepresented in children's books. However, publishers being commercial enterprises, they are not responding to the raw census level of population but rather to the subpopulation that are book buyers. What I have done is take the average reading volume (hours per year) for each group, adjusted it for the percentage of reading that is book related (rather than magazines and newspapers) and adjusted yet further to reflect propensity to purchase books. This allows us to assess whether and to what degree publishers are responding to the book buying public. The answer is that the non-Hispanic white book buying public is being served proportionately, that the African-American and Native American book buying populations are being dramatically overrepresented and the Hispanic and Asian American populations are being materially underrepresented.
The gap between demographics and the book buying populations arises because of differentials in the volume of book reading and book buying being done by the respective groups. The necessary corollary conclusion is thatincreased supply won't do much if there is not increased demand. (Also see Richard Nash's article What is the business of Literature?
in which he observes that "Abundance, it turns out, is a much bigger problem to solve than scarcity").
The fact that publishers are significantly oversupplying some groups and undersupplying others would seem to clear publishers of the charge of conscious or unconscious discrimination.It suggests that they are possibly ineffective at correctly judging the extent to which different groups would be willing to buy themed books but the data indicates that they are clearly attempting to address submarkets.
So we now have a first order estimate of the degree ofover and underrepresentation by ethnicity and we also have data indicating that simple discrimination within the publishing industry is unlikely the root cause of lack of representation for some groups. Thought you might be interested in the analysis.
None of this addresses the core issue, whether there is any data to support the contention that representation has any measurable impact on life outcomes. If there is no measurable impact of over or underrepresentation, then the whole issue is moot and something of a red herring.
While we are on a data analysis roll, I have another post which might be of interest to teachers and librarians. The US education system frequently gets criticizedin international comparisons as both expensive and ineffective, with ourstudents scoring only in the middle of the pack. In the post at ThingFinder - U.S. Education Expensive and Ineffective? Not So Fast
(httive.html), I look at the underlying data. The US system is actually extremely effective (at least in terms of the reading aspect of education) when one compares like-to-like in terms of cultural origins, scoring better than all sixty participants save only Finland.
Charles
---------------------------------------------------------------=
CCBC-Net in April From: Megan Schliesman Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:17:51 -0500 X-Message-Number: 2
Please feel free to share children's and young adult literature-related announcement about conferences or other opportunities in the next few days.
Next week, we'll kick off the first of our two discussion topics for April:
*First Half of Month: Art and Artists in Literature for Children and Teens.*From picture books to novels to exemplary non-fiction, the arts are explored and celebrated in myriad ways in literature for children and teens. Among the brand new books we are already excited about here at the CCBC are /Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies /by Nell Beram and Carolyn Boriss-Krimsky (Amulet/Abrams, 2013) and /Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet /by Andrea Cheng (Lee and Low, 2013).During the first half of April we invite you to share some ofyour favorite books about art and artists (but not music and musicians-the second half of April!).
*Second Half of Month: Music and Musicians in Literature for Children and Teens.//*From picture book renditions of well-known songs to biographies of musicians to explorations of different musical forms and individual compositions, there are many rich and lyrical musical offerings in books for children and teens. Consider books about John Coltrane as an example: Among them are Chris Raschka's playful and brilliant /John Coltrane's Giant Steps /(Atheneum, 2002)/, /about Coltrane's musical composition of that name; Carole Boston Weatherford's delightful and imaginative /Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane /(Henry Holt, 2008), a consideration of young John Coltrane's aural influences; and Gary Golio's informative and artful /Spirit Seeker: John Coltrane's Musical Journey /(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,2012) , a picture book biography for older readers.During the second half of April, we invite you to turn up the volume on some of your favorite books about music and musicians for children and teens.
Throughout the month, we encourage you to consider and include books of poetry on each of themes in recognition of National Poetry Month!
Megan-- Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503 schliesman_at_educati on.wisc.edu
www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
---------------------=
hey! From: Patti Sinclair Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:13:05 -0700 (PDT) X-Message-Number: 3
http://www.vanguardcaerphilly.
______________________=
LIAR: He's definitely a young man to watch.
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2013 08:20:00 -0700 (PDT)
Sorry--my email was hacked and many people received a "Hey" message from my account with a dubious link. Patti Sinclair
_________=
_______________________ From: CCBC-Net digest =
To: ccbc-net digest recipients Sent: Sat, March 30, 2013 12:25:48 AM Subject: ccbc-net digest: March 29, 2013
CCBC-NET Digest for Friday, March 29, 2013.
1. STEM and Representation f ollow-up 2. CCBC-Net in April 3. hey!
----------------------------=
STEM and Represent ation follow-up From: Charles Bayless Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 14:14:58 -0400 X-Message-Number: 1
I have waited till the end of the month in order to not distract from the current discussion. I have a follow-up to last month's conversation regarding representation in children's literature. Recapping: The argument was advanced 1) that certain classes of children (race, gender, class, culture, orientation, etc.) are underrepresented in children's literature, 2) that this lack of representation creates a material negative impact on children, and 3) that the cause of such underrepresentation was conscious or unconscious discrimination on the part of the publishing industry.
The counterargument was that a) there is no objective empirical evidencethat documents the extent and degree of underrepresentation by group (not contesting that there likely was underrepresentation, only that there was no data to quantify it), b) that there is no empirical evidence supporting any impact of over or underrepresentation of traditional categorizations (race, gender, class, orientation, etc.) on life outcomes and much obvious evidence to the contrary, and c) that there was no evidence supporting discrimination on the part of the publishing industry.
In the spirit of March's STEM theme (science being the generation and testing of hypotheses with data) I have been able to source data from credible organizations (US Census, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, CCBC and the Kaiser Foundation) that allows a first order crack at answering argument element 1 (degree of representation). In doing so, that also begins to address argument element 3 (publishing industry discrimination). In order not to disrupt the CCBC monthly conversation, I have posted the methodology, details of analysis, and results at my blog, Thing Finder - Reading, Publishing, and Ethnicity
(http://thingfinder.blogspot.com/2013/03/reading-publishing-and-ethnicity.ht ml). Comments are welcome there.This analysis is only a first order estimate. It is always better to use data collected in a common controlled fashion than to use data from multiple sources. In the absence of any other evidence though, this is likely a reasonably robust first order effort.
The summary is that at a demographic level, all minority groups are underrepresented in children's books. However, publishers being commercial enterprises, they are not responding to the raw census level of population but rather to the subpopulation that are book buyers. What I have done is take the average reading volume (hours per year) for each group, adjusted it for the percentage of reading that is book related (rather than magazines and newspapers) and adjusted yet further to reflect propensity to purchase books. This allows us to assess whether and to what degree publishers are responding to the book buying public. The answer is that the non-Hispanic white book buying public is being served proportionately, that the African-American and Native American book buying populations are being dramatically overrepresented and the Hispanic and Asian American populations are being materially underrepresented.
The gap between demographics and the book buying populations arises because of differentials in the volume of book reading and book buying being done by the respective groups. The necessary corollary conclusion is thatincreased supply won't do much if there is not increased demand. (Also see Richard Nash's article What is the business of Literature?
in which he observes that "Abundance, it turns out, is a much bigger problem to solve than scarcity").
The fact that publishers are significantly oversupplying some groups and undersupplying others would seem to clear publishers of the charge of conscious or unconscious discrimination.It suggests that they are possibly ineffective at correctly judging the extent to which different groups would be willing to buy themed books but the data indicates that they are clearly attempting to address submarkets.
So we now have a first order estimate of the degree ofover and underrepresentation by ethnicity and we also have data indicating that simple discrimination within the publishing industry is unlikely the root cause of lack of representation for some groups. Thought you might be interested in the analysis.
None of this addresses the core issue, whether there is any data to support the contention that representation has any measurable impact on life outcomes. If there is no measurable impact of over or underrepresentation, then the whole issue is moot and something of a red herring.
While we are on a data analysis roll, I have another post which might be of interest to teachers and librarians. The US education system frequently gets criticizedin international comparisons as both expensive and ineffective, with ourstudents scoring only in the middle of the pack. In the post at ThingFinder - U.S. Education Expensive and Ineffective? Not So Fast
(httive.html), I look at the underlying data. The US system is actually extremely effective (at least in terms of the reading aspect of education) when one compares like-to-like in terms of cultural origins, scoring better than all sixty participants save only Finland.
Charles
---------------------------------------------------------------=
CCBC-Net in April From: Megan Schliesman Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:17:51 -0500 X-Message-Number: 2
Please feel free to share children's and young adult literature-related announcement about conferences or other opportunities in the next few days.
Next week, we'll kick off the first of our two discussion topics for April:
*First Half of Month: Art and Artists in Literature for Children and Teens.*From picture books to novels to exemplary non-fiction, the arts are explored and celebrated in myriad ways in literature for children and teens. Among the brand new books we are already excited about here at the CCBC are /Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies /by Nell Beram and Carolyn Boriss-Krimsky (Amulet/Abrams, 2013) and /Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet /by Andrea Cheng (Lee and Low, 2013).During the first half of April we invite you to share some ofyour favorite books about art and artists (but not music and musicians-the second half of April!).
*Second Half of Month: Music and Musicians in Literature for Children and Teens.//*From picture book renditions of well-known songs to biographies of musicians to explorations of different musical forms and individual compositions, there are many rich and lyrical musical offerings in books for children and teens. Consider books about John Coltrane as an example: Among them are Chris Raschka's playful and brilliant /John Coltrane's Giant Steps /(Atheneum, 2002)/, /about Coltrane's musical composition of that name; Carole Boston Weatherford's delightful and imaginative /Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane /(Henry Holt, 2008), a consideration of young John Coltrane's aural influences; and Gary Golio's informative and artful /Spirit Seeker: John Coltrane's Musical Journey /(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,2012) , a picture book biography for older readers.During the second half of April, we invite you to turn up the volume on some of your favorite books about music and musicians for children and teens.
Throughout the month, we encourage you to consider and include books of poetry on each of themes in recognition of National Poetry Month!
Megan-- Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503 schliesman_at_educati on.wisc.edu
www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
---------------------=
hey! From: Patti Sinclair Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:13:05 -0700 (PDT) X-Message-Number: 3
http://www.vanguardcaerphilly.
______________________=
LIAR: He's definitely a young man to watch.
--- END OF DIGE=Received on Sat 30 Mar 2013 08:20:00 AM CDT
