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RE: Caldecott and Diversity Question 2 - Prize Overlap
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From: Charles Bayless <charles.bayless_at_ttmd.com>
Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 10:40:02 -0400
Question 2: Why aren't there more occasions when winners of CSK also win Caldecott?
I don't have a direct answer for this question but I do have some data that might be pertinent. I am writing this up at the moment for the project I mentioned and will have more details when I am done.
The first data observation is that the CSK award is much more concentrated among recipients than in any of the other awards with 55% of all awards going to authors/illustrators who had already won at least one CSK award. The comparable concentration among other awards is between 5-15%. For Pulitzer, Caldecott and Newbery, between 3% and 6% of winners have managed to win the prize more than once. For CSK, 27% of all winners have won the prize more than once. In economic terms, this is indicative of a very concentrated market (few producers dominating the market). Concentrated markets are typically characterized by low competition, low growth and low innovation.
The second data observation is that the CSK award has a very high proportion of its winners, 26%, that are out of print (OOP). The comparable numbers for Pulitzer, Caldecott and Newbery in the same time period are 0%. Such high OOP numbers for CSK can be interpreted as a weakness in market demand for the type of books CSK is recognizing.
The third data observation is that the CSK award winner titles are cited in other books half as often as the Caldecott and Newbery winners indicating a low critical reception.
The fourth data observation is that the CSK award winner titles have less than half to a third of the number of editions per year in print as the Caldecott and Newbery awards, again indicating low commercial demand.
The fifth data observation is that only 13% of CSK award winners are translated into other languages versus 43% for Caldecott and 91% for Newbery. Of those 13% that are translated, the average number of languages is 2 for CSK versus 4 for Caldecott and 8 for Newbery. The average number of foreign editions is 7 for CSK, 11 for Caldecott, and 24 for Newbery. These numbers indicate low international interest in CSK titles.
These various measures indicate a high dependency on a few authors/illustrators, a weak market demand (high OOP, few editions), low critical reception (low citations), and low universalism (few foreign translations, few editions when translated and small number of languages translated). The reason for those results, and their contrast to the comparable numbers for Caldecott and Newbery, are, I think the explanation for why there is such little overlap between CSK and Caldecott and Newbery.
I speculate that the different criteria for the Caldecott and CSK might be the source of the difference in terms of consequentiality. For the Caldecott, (emphasis added) "The Medal shall be awarded annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published by an American publisher in the United States in English during the preceding year. There are no limitations as to the character of the picture book except that the illustrations be original work." The critical qualifiers are "no limitations" and "distinguished" which is defined as: Marked by eminence and distinction; noted for significant achievement; Marked by excellence in quality; Marked by conspicuous excellence or eminence; and Individually distinct. Given these objectives, which match closely to the measured definition of consequentiality, the population of competing candidate titles is very large and diverse. For CSK, on the other hand, "The Award is given to an African American author and illustrator for outstand ing inspirational and educational contributions. The Coretta Scott King Book Award titles promote understanding and appreciation of the culture of all peoples and their contribution to the realization of the American dream of a pluralistic society." In addition, the award "Must portray some aspect of the black experience, past, present, or future." With these restrictions by race (must be by an African American) and attributes (inspirational and educational) and goals (promote understanding) and subject (must be about African Americans), it is necessarily true that the CSK has access to only a small fraction of titles to consider compared to Caldecott. It's like a company or a sports team that is only allowed to recruit locally trying to compete with another company or team that recruits nationally. Occasionally they will end up with the same candidate but usually not. If this is correct, the absence of overlap between the two awards is predictable and arises for structural reasons related to their respectiv e objectives.
I think the answer to your second question is that whatever their intentions, goals, methods of selecting judges, processes for judging, etc. the net result is that Caldecott and Newbery (and Pulitzer at the non-child level) are managing to pick much more consequential books (in terms of market demand, critical reception, and international reception) from among a much, much larger population of candidates than is available to the CSK. Whatever the differences are between the two judging processes, it is the differences in prize goals which is the source of low overlap in actual titles selected. As an example of the structural implications of a large inclusive prize versus a smaller specialized one, if one were to compile a list of the best all-around athletes from amongst all sports and a list of the best athletes in a specific sport (for example, ice hockey), you would expect perhaps at least some ice hockey players on the list of overall best athletes, but not necessarily a lot of names. The smaller the nu mber of participants and more specialized the sport, the less absolute competition and therefore the less likely that anyone other than the very best in that particular specialized sport will be represented on the inclusive list. Among the list of best all-around athletes, athletes from larger and more competitive sports (soccer, football, baseball, basketball, etc.) are likely to be overrepresented, because those sports are so large and exceptionally competitive, while shot-putters or saber fencers are less likely to be proportionately represented.
Charles
Received on Fri 17 May 2013 10:40:02 AM CDT
Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 10:40:02 -0400
Question 2: Why aren't there more occasions when winners of CSK also win Caldecott?
I don't have a direct answer for this question but I do have some data that might be pertinent. I am writing this up at the moment for the project I mentioned and will have more details when I am done.
The first data observation is that the CSK award is much more concentrated among recipients than in any of the other awards with 55% of all awards going to authors/illustrators who had already won at least one CSK award. The comparable concentration among other awards is between 5-15%. For Pulitzer, Caldecott and Newbery, between 3% and 6% of winners have managed to win the prize more than once. For CSK, 27% of all winners have won the prize more than once. In economic terms, this is indicative of a very concentrated market (few producers dominating the market). Concentrated markets are typically characterized by low competition, low growth and low innovation.
The second data observation is that the CSK award has a very high proportion of its winners, 26%, that are out of print (OOP). The comparable numbers for Pulitzer, Caldecott and Newbery in the same time period are 0%. Such high OOP numbers for CSK can be interpreted as a weakness in market demand for the type of books CSK is recognizing.
The third data observation is that the CSK award winner titles are cited in other books half as often as the Caldecott and Newbery winners indicating a low critical reception.
The fourth data observation is that the CSK award winner titles have less than half to a third of the number of editions per year in print as the Caldecott and Newbery awards, again indicating low commercial demand.
The fifth data observation is that only 13% of CSK award winners are translated into other languages versus 43% for Caldecott and 91% for Newbery. Of those 13% that are translated, the average number of languages is 2 for CSK versus 4 for Caldecott and 8 for Newbery. The average number of foreign editions is 7 for CSK, 11 for Caldecott, and 24 for Newbery. These numbers indicate low international interest in CSK titles.
These various measures indicate a high dependency on a few authors/illustrators, a weak market demand (high OOP, few editions), low critical reception (low citations), and low universalism (few foreign translations, few editions when translated and small number of languages translated). The reason for those results, and their contrast to the comparable numbers for Caldecott and Newbery, are, I think the explanation for why there is such little overlap between CSK and Caldecott and Newbery.
I speculate that the different criteria for the Caldecott and CSK might be the source of the difference in terms of consequentiality. For the Caldecott, (emphasis added) "The Medal shall be awarded annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published by an American publisher in the United States in English during the preceding year. There are no limitations as to the character of the picture book except that the illustrations be original work." The critical qualifiers are "no limitations" and "distinguished" which is defined as: Marked by eminence and distinction; noted for significant achievement; Marked by excellence in quality; Marked by conspicuous excellence or eminence; and Individually distinct. Given these objectives, which match closely to the measured definition of consequentiality, the population of competing candidate titles is very large and diverse. For CSK, on the other hand, "The Award is given to an African American author and illustrator for outstand ing inspirational and educational contributions. The Coretta Scott King Book Award titles promote understanding and appreciation of the culture of all peoples and their contribution to the realization of the American dream of a pluralistic society." In addition, the award "Must portray some aspect of the black experience, past, present, or future." With these restrictions by race (must be by an African American) and attributes (inspirational and educational) and goals (promote understanding) and subject (must be about African Americans), it is necessarily true that the CSK has access to only a small fraction of titles to consider compared to Caldecott. It's like a company or a sports team that is only allowed to recruit locally trying to compete with another company or team that recruits nationally. Occasionally they will end up with the same candidate but usually not. If this is correct, the absence of overlap between the two awards is predictable and arises for structural reasons related to their respectiv e objectives.
I think the answer to your second question is that whatever their intentions, goals, methods of selecting judges, processes for judging, etc. the net result is that Caldecott and Newbery (and Pulitzer at the non-child level) are managing to pick much more consequential books (in terms of market demand, critical reception, and international reception) from among a much, much larger population of candidates than is available to the CSK. Whatever the differences are between the two judging processes, it is the differences in prize goals which is the source of low overlap in actual titles selected. As an example of the structural implications of a large inclusive prize versus a smaller specialized one, if one were to compile a list of the best all-around athletes from amongst all sports and a list of the best athletes in a specific sport (for example, ice hockey), you would expect perhaps at least some ice hockey players on the list of overall best athletes, but not necessarily a lot of names. The smaller the nu mber of participants and more specialized the sport, the less absolute competition and therefore the less likely that anyone other than the very best in that particular specialized sport will be represented on the inclusive list. Among the list of best all-around athletes, athletes from larger and more competitive sports (soccer, football, baseball, basketball, etc.) are likely to be overrepresented, because those sports are so large and exceptionally competitive, while shot-putters or saber fencers are less likely to be proportionately represented.
Charles
Received on Fri 17 May 2013 10:40:02 AM CDT
