CCBC-Net Archives
RE: Multiculturalism and the unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Charles Bayless <charles.bayless_at_ttmd.com>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2014 12:54:42 -0500
Christine,
Well yes, you do misunderstand. Pretty comprehensively. You won't find any of your statements in my comments. I think what I am doing is exactly what we say ought to be done - applying critical thinking to our beliefs in an epistemological fashion. 1) What do we believe we know (proposition), 2) why do we believe we know it (evidence), 3) what is the truth (contingently measured), 4) what do others believe, and 5) why do they believe it. Answer those questions and you get closer to the truth, you get closer to the possibility of agreement, and you get closer to effective action.
We have had multiple conversations going simultaneously but I think the principle propositions have been:
Children self-identify by their census attributes (race and gender primarily)
POC are underrepresented in terms of by and about in children's books.
The underrepresentation occurs because agents, publishers and librarians are risk averse gatekeepers.
Underrepresentation has a material impact on the life outcomes of those children underrepresented.
From a critical thinking perspective, it is entirely in keeping to question each one of these propositions. If they are true or likely to be true, then it leads to one set of recommended actions. If they are not true or weakly supported by evidence then it leads to different actions. Nobody denies that real work needs to be done, but what is the real work? After fifty years, perhaps we ought to continue focusing on trying to get librarians, agents and publishers to change their behaviors. Perhaps in ten or twenty years we might hit some tipping point and the POC numbers will change. The answers from this exercise in critical thinking suggest that instead the issue is with the reading habits of the public at large, i.e. change demand and you will change the numbers.
The context for this discussion is the conundrum that race and gender and identity have been reasonably front and center for half a century but the published POC numbers have not changed. In that time period, there have been sea-changes in population demographics; industry structure; laws and regulations; patterns of emigration; technology; social attitudes; barriers to entry in publishing; education attainment by the population at large; three generations of publishing and librarian leadership changes. Despite all that, and despite the sustained focus on agents, publishers, and librarians, the POC numbers of 15% have not budged much. It is not unreasonable to speculate therefore that the issue does not reside with the librarians, agents and publishers, but perhaps somewhere else, the likely nominee being demand.
There is little point in rehashing all the pro and con evidence on each of the four propositions above. But I think I should address what feels like a strawman parody that you have created.
1. People of color don't buy books, - Your statement, not mine. I said that there is a disparity in reading and book buying which I think is pretty clearly not the same thing as saying that POC don't buy books. If there is a disparity in reading volumes, then you would expect a disparity in authorship rates as well. All I am doing is pointing out that there is in fact a documented disparity in reading rates which is likely at least part of the explanation for the disparity in authorship rates. Not that POC don't read and not that it is the entire explanation.
And I don't think that this a particularly controversial proposition. If there are two equal athletes who differ only in that one practices forty hours a week and the other thirty, none of us would be surprised to discover that the one who practices forty hours a week wins more competitions. And that is what the data from five credible sources (BLS, Census, Pew Research, Brookings, and Kaiser Foundation) is saying - that there are differences in the amount of reading between population groups and that those differences match the variance in publication rates.
2. It isn't important to them, - Never said that either. Same as comment one.
3. If they do buy books, cultural inclusion isn't relevant to future success
- Again your statement, not mine. I am not speaking to whether the proposition is true or not, I am speaking to the quality of evidence supporting the assumption. All I am doing is stating what I think is true and no one has countered. There is relatively voluminous empirical evidence for the correlation between the amount of reading and positive life outcomes. There is even some evidence of voluminous reading as a causative factor in positive life outcomes. As far as I am aware there is no robust empirical data or evidence that ties book content to life outcomes. If you have such evidence I would be very interested in seeing it. Cultural inclusion may or may not be relevant to future success but there is no robust evidence to support the proposition at this point in time.
There are multiple issues and counterfactuals associated with this proposition. It is unclear that children affiliate with characters in stories in the same way that some adults think they ought to affiliate based on race or gender or orientation. Maybe they do but the evidence is scarce and ambiguous and there are many counterfactuals.
One of the major experiences of the past fifty years has been the increasingly diverse immigration patterns arising from the reforms of 1965. Multiple different ethnic and cultural groups arriving in greater numbers, none of them represented in children's literature, i.e. no way for their children to self-identify based on ethnicity. These different groups have had markedly different life outcomes, some with much better results than the native born population and others much worse. If none of their children are represented in children's books but the outcomes are widely variant, it raises the question whether children's book content is a material contributor to outcomes.
On a completely different front, over the past fifty years, there have been periodic scares that violence and pornography were corrupting the youth and adults of America with corresponding research, investigations, commissions and such. The evidence about the proposition that content affects behavior arising from these scares is decidedly mixed ranging from no influence at all to the conclusion that content might exacerbate the problem for some small percentage of the population with already established extreme pathologies. But the substance from all that research is that the content per se appears to have little or no measurable effect on the behaviors of any or most readers.
If there is no evidence that book content has any measurable impact on behaviors and life outcomes, then it weakens the argument that that is an important issue. Note that I am not saying that if there is no evidence then it is not true. I am say that the argument becomes harder to make. There are lots of things that can't be proven at a point in time but which prove to be true eventually. But until then it is a matter of faith. Faith based arguments tend to be much more contentious than evidence based conversations, though both can be hard.
4. CCBC members shouldn't consider themselves representative of, or qualified to speak for them (even when they are the target audience and/or work directly with them). - Again, your statement, not mine. You won't find anywhere that I have said that. I am merely pointing out that it is challenging to remain mindful that what we believe in one community may not be believed in another and we should be cognizant of the tendency to prioritize our own preferred beliefs above those of others. It doesn't mean we are wrong, it means that if we want to advocate understanding others, it kind of requires that we understand others. And from a critical thinking perspective it is always useful to keep in mind that there are certain common cognitive biases that afflict everyone, and to which nobody is immune: see 10 Problems With How We Think
<http://www.realclearscience.com/lists/10_problems_with_how_humans_think/> from Real Clear Science.
Since you reference an article from the UK, let me also reference a couple from their experience which I think highlight the nuances and difficulties of trying to force fit reality into a preconceived model of simple race. Two reports on a recent British study, A New Kind of Ghetto
<http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21589230-britain-no-longer-has
-serious-race-problem-trouble-isolation-new-kind> from The Economist, Britain's divided schools: a disturbing portrait of inequality
<http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/oct/10/britains-divided-school-sy stem-report> by Anushka Asthana. Basically what they are finding in the UK is that it is not race that is a useful predictor of outcomes but social isolation and that social isolation varies between and among different groups, independent of race.
Yes, there is real work that needs to be done, but part of that real work is understanding what the real problems are versus what we might think they are.
I think the focus on agents, publishers and librarians has been a blind alley and that the real work needs to be around increasing reading demand. It is an opinion buttressed by a reasonable amount of evidence but it cannot be interpreted as a proven fact. We simply do not know enough yet.
My recommendation would be that we focus on 1) Finding ways to increase reading enthusiasm in all communities, thus increasing demand. 2) That we focus on ways to make it easier for publishers to find very narrowly defined communities of interest. 3) Find ways to make it cheaper for publishers to connect and fulfill demand from such communities of interest. Do those three things, and I think you would see some significant change in the POC numbers.
My take away from this discussion is that we are at the knowledge frontier where certainty of belief and weakness of evidence are in delicate balance. I think all we can say with great confidence is that there is value in reading voluminously, reading widely and venturously, reading deeply and passionately, trying new things and being aware of getting caught in a reading rut.
Charles
From: Christine Taylor-Butler [mailto:kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net] Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2014 8:55 PM To: ccbc-net,Subscribers of Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] Multiculturalism and the unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty
Charles,
As usual you leave me with a loss for words. Perhaps I misunderstand your meaning but the state of multicultural publishing in your posts over the years seems to whittle down to:
1. People of color don't buy books,
2. It isn't important to them,
3. If they do buy books, cultural inclusion isn't relevant to future success
3. CCBC members shouldn't consider themselves representative of, or qualified to speak for them (even when they are the target audience and/or work directly with them).
So I doubt you will enjoy this blog essay that my husband stumbled upon - but perhaps it will help those who read your statistical analyses and are still wondering how on Earth you arrived at those conclusions.
"You can't do that! Stories have to be about White people" (Dec 7, 2013): http://mediadiversified.org/2013/12/07/you-cant-do-that-stories-have-to-be-a bout-white-people/
Go in peace, my friend. Crunch your numbers. Post your data points. The rest of us have real tangible work to do to insure children of ALL colors see themselves reflected in literature in a way that allows them to be joyful and develop to their full potential.
My regards, Christine
On Feb 14, 2014, at 5:34 PM, Charles Bayless wrote:
Is racial underrepresentation in literary fiction a material issue that needs to be addressed? I think it would be safe to say that a strong majority, let's say 60-80%, of the CCBC population would answer Yes! The general population has a different answer. Taking daily reading as a proxy for belief that reading is important, only 55% believe reading to children is important. Of that only 4% are concerned with literary fiction, i.e. 2.2%. And of those, only 40% are concerned with interracial issues, i.e. 0.8% of the population. It calls to mind Kissinger's quip that the fights are so bitter because the stakes are so small.
Where does that leave us? 80% of population C (CCBC) says that racial underrepresentation in books is important and something needs to be done. Only 0.8% of population A (all) says that there is an issue that needs to be addressed. Population C can produce some solid research indicating thatvolume of childhood reading is important to life outcomes but can produce no evidence that content of reading has any effect on life outcomes.
That's a big hill of persuasion to climb.
I
You are currently subscribed to ccbc-net as: charles.bayless_at_ttmd.com.
To post to the list, send message to...
ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu
To receive messages in digest format, send a message to...
ccbc-net-request_at_lists.wisc.edu
...and include only this command in the body of the message...
set ccbc-net digest
=ccbc-net&o=34157176> &n=T&l=ccbc-net&o=34157176
CCBC-Net Archives
The CCBC-Net archives are available to all CCBC-Net listserv members. The archives are organized by month and year. A list of discussion topics
(including month/year) is available at...
http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ccbcnet/archives.asp
To access the archives, go to...
http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/ccbc-net
...and enter the following when prompted...
username: ccbc-net password: Look4Posts
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2014 12:54:42 -0500
Christine,
Well yes, you do misunderstand. Pretty comprehensively. You won't find any of your statements in my comments. I think what I am doing is exactly what we say ought to be done - applying critical thinking to our beliefs in an epistemological fashion. 1) What do we believe we know (proposition), 2) why do we believe we know it (evidence), 3) what is the truth (contingently measured), 4) what do others believe, and 5) why do they believe it. Answer those questions and you get closer to the truth, you get closer to the possibility of agreement, and you get closer to effective action.
We have had multiple conversations going simultaneously but I think the principle propositions have been:
Children self-identify by their census attributes (race and gender primarily)
POC are underrepresented in terms of by and about in children's books.
The underrepresentation occurs because agents, publishers and librarians are risk averse gatekeepers.
Underrepresentation has a material impact on the life outcomes of those children underrepresented.
From a critical thinking perspective, it is entirely in keeping to question each one of these propositions. If they are true or likely to be true, then it leads to one set of recommended actions. If they are not true or weakly supported by evidence then it leads to different actions. Nobody denies that real work needs to be done, but what is the real work? After fifty years, perhaps we ought to continue focusing on trying to get librarians, agents and publishers to change their behaviors. Perhaps in ten or twenty years we might hit some tipping point and the POC numbers will change. The answers from this exercise in critical thinking suggest that instead the issue is with the reading habits of the public at large, i.e. change demand and you will change the numbers.
The context for this discussion is the conundrum that race and gender and identity have been reasonably front and center for half a century but the published POC numbers have not changed. In that time period, there have been sea-changes in population demographics; industry structure; laws and regulations; patterns of emigration; technology; social attitudes; barriers to entry in publishing; education attainment by the population at large; three generations of publishing and librarian leadership changes. Despite all that, and despite the sustained focus on agents, publishers, and librarians, the POC numbers of 15% have not budged much. It is not unreasonable to speculate therefore that the issue does not reside with the librarians, agents and publishers, but perhaps somewhere else, the likely nominee being demand.
There is little point in rehashing all the pro and con evidence on each of the four propositions above. But I think I should address what feels like a strawman parody that you have created.
1. People of color don't buy books, - Your statement, not mine. I said that there is a disparity in reading and book buying which I think is pretty clearly not the same thing as saying that POC don't buy books. If there is a disparity in reading volumes, then you would expect a disparity in authorship rates as well. All I am doing is pointing out that there is in fact a documented disparity in reading rates which is likely at least part of the explanation for the disparity in authorship rates. Not that POC don't read and not that it is the entire explanation.
And I don't think that this a particularly controversial proposition. If there are two equal athletes who differ only in that one practices forty hours a week and the other thirty, none of us would be surprised to discover that the one who practices forty hours a week wins more competitions. And that is what the data from five credible sources (BLS, Census, Pew Research, Brookings, and Kaiser Foundation) is saying - that there are differences in the amount of reading between population groups and that those differences match the variance in publication rates.
2. It isn't important to them, - Never said that either. Same as comment one.
3. If they do buy books, cultural inclusion isn't relevant to future success
- Again your statement, not mine. I am not speaking to whether the proposition is true or not, I am speaking to the quality of evidence supporting the assumption. All I am doing is stating what I think is true and no one has countered. There is relatively voluminous empirical evidence for the correlation between the amount of reading and positive life outcomes. There is even some evidence of voluminous reading as a causative factor in positive life outcomes. As far as I am aware there is no robust empirical data or evidence that ties book content to life outcomes. If you have such evidence I would be very interested in seeing it. Cultural inclusion may or may not be relevant to future success but there is no robust evidence to support the proposition at this point in time.
There are multiple issues and counterfactuals associated with this proposition. It is unclear that children affiliate with characters in stories in the same way that some adults think they ought to affiliate based on race or gender or orientation. Maybe they do but the evidence is scarce and ambiguous and there are many counterfactuals.
One of the major experiences of the past fifty years has been the increasingly diverse immigration patterns arising from the reforms of 1965. Multiple different ethnic and cultural groups arriving in greater numbers, none of them represented in children's literature, i.e. no way for their children to self-identify based on ethnicity. These different groups have had markedly different life outcomes, some with much better results than the native born population and others much worse. If none of their children are represented in children's books but the outcomes are widely variant, it raises the question whether children's book content is a material contributor to outcomes.
On a completely different front, over the past fifty years, there have been periodic scares that violence and pornography were corrupting the youth and adults of America with corresponding research, investigations, commissions and such. The evidence about the proposition that content affects behavior arising from these scares is decidedly mixed ranging from no influence at all to the conclusion that content might exacerbate the problem for some small percentage of the population with already established extreme pathologies. But the substance from all that research is that the content per se appears to have little or no measurable effect on the behaviors of any or most readers.
If there is no evidence that book content has any measurable impact on behaviors and life outcomes, then it weakens the argument that that is an important issue. Note that I am not saying that if there is no evidence then it is not true. I am say that the argument becomes harder to make. There are lots of things that can't be proven at a point in time but which prove to be true eventually. But until then it is a matter of faith. Faith based arguments tend to be much more contentious than evidence based conversations, though both can be hard.
4. CCBC members shouldn't consider themselves representative of, or qualified to speak for them (even when they are the target audience and/or work directly with them). - Again, your statement, not mine. You won't find anywhere that I have said that. I am merely pointing out that it is challenging to remain mindful that what we believe in one community may not be believed in another and we should be cognizant of the tendency to prioritize our own preferred beliefs above those of others. It doesn't mean we are wrong, it means that if we want to advocate understanding others, it kind of requires that we understand others. And from a critical thinking perspective it is always useful to keep in mind that there are certain common cognitive biases that afflict everyone, and to which nobody is immune: see 10 Problems With How We Think
<http://www.realclearscience.com/lists/10_problems_with_how_humans_think/> from Real Clear Science.
Since you reference an article from the UK, let me also reference a couple from their experience which I think highlight the nuances and difficulties of trying to force fit reality into a preconceived model of simple race. Two reports on a recent British study, A New Kind of Ghetto
<http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21589230-britain-no-longer-has
-serious-race-problem-trouble-isolation-new-kind> from The Economist, Britain's divided schools: a disturbing portrait of inequality
<http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/oct/10/britains-divided-school-sy stem-report> by Anushka Asthana. Basically what they are finding in the UK is that it is not race that is a useful predictor of outcomes but social isolation and that social isolation varies between and among different groups, independent of race.
Yes, there is real work that needs to be done, but part of that real work is understanding what the real problems are versus what we might think they are.
I think the focus on agents, publishers and librarians has been a blind alley and that the real work needs to be around increasing reading demand. It is an opinion buttressed by a reasonable amount of evidence but it cannot be interpreted as a proven fact. We simply do not know enough yet.
My recommendation would be that we focus on 1) Finding ways to increase reading enthusiasm in all communities, thus increasing demand. 2) That we focus on ways to make it easier for publishers to find very narrowly defined communities of interest. 3) Find ways to make it cheaper for publishers to connect and fulfill demand from such communities of interest. Do those three things, and I think you would see some significant change in the POC numbers.
My take away from this discussion is that we are at the knowledge frontier where certainty of belief and weakness of evidence are in delicate balance. I think all we can say with great confidence is that there is value in reading voluminously, reading widely and venturously, reading deeply and passionately, trying new things and being aware of getting caught in a reading rut.
Charles
From: Christine Taylor-Butler [mailto:kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net] Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2014 8:55 PM To: ccbc-net,Subscribers of Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] Multiculturalism and the unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty
Charles,
As usual you leave me with a loss for words. Perhaps I misunderstand your meaning but the state of multicultural publishing in your posts over the years seems to whittle down to:
1. People of color don't buy books,
2. It isn't important to them,
3. If they do buy books, cultural inclusion isn't relevant to future success
3. CCBC members shouldn't consider themselves representative of, or qualified to speak for them (even when they are the target audience and/or work directly with them).
So I doubt you will enjoy this blog essay that my husband stumbled upon - but perhaps it will help those who read your statistical analyses and are still wondering how on Earth you arrived at those conclusions.
"You can't do that! Stories have to be about White people" (Dec 7, 2013): http://mediadiversified.org/2013/12/07/you-cant-do-that-stories-have-to-be-a bout-white-people/
Go in peace, my friend. Crunch your numbers. Post your data points. The rest of us have real tangible work to do to insure children of ALL colors see themselves reflected in literature in a way that allows them to be joyful and develop to their full potential.
My regards, Christine
On Feb 14, 2014, at 5:34 PM, Charles Bayless wrote:
Is racial underrepresentation in literary fiction a material issue that needs to be addressed? I think it would be safe to say that a strong majority, let's say 60-80%, of the CCBC population would answer Yes! The general population has a different answer. Taking daily reading as a proxy for belief that reading is important, only 55% believe reading to children is important. Of that only 4% are concerned with literary fiction, i.e. 2.2%. And of those, only 40% are concerned with interracial issues, i.e. 0.8% of the population. It calls to mind Kissinger's quip that the fights are so bitter because the stakes are so small.
Where does that leave us? 80% of population C (CCBC) says that racial underrepresentation in books is important and something needs to be done. Only 0.8% of population A (all) says that there is an issue that needs to be addressed. Population C can produce some solid research indicating thatvolume of childhood reading is important to life outcomes but can produce no evidence that content of reading has any effect on life outcomes.
That's a big hill of persuasion to climb.
I
You are currently subscribed to ccbc-net as: charles.bayless_at_ttmd.com.
To post to the list, send message to...
ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu
To receive messages in digest format, send a message to...
ccbc-net-request_at_lists.wisc.edu
...and include only this command in the body of the message...
set ccbc-net digest
=ccbc-net&o=34157176> &n=T&l=ccbc-net&o=34157176
CCBC-Net Archives
The CCBC-Net archives are available to all CCBC-Net listserv members. The archives are organized by month and year. A list of discussion topics
(including month/year) is available at...
http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ccbcnet/archives.asp
To access the archives, go to...
http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/ccbc-net
...and enter the following when prompted...
username: ccbc-net password: Look4Posts
---
You are currently subscribed to ccbc-net as: ccbc-archive_at_post.education.wisc.edu.
To post to the list, send message to: ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu
To receive messages in digest format, send a message to...
ccbc-net-request_at_lists.wisc.edu
...and include only this command in the body of the message:
set ccbc-net digest
CCBC-Net Archives
The CCBC-Net archives are available to all CCBC-Net listserv members. The archives are organized by month and year. A list of discussion topics (including month/year) is available at http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ccbcnet/archives.asp
To access the archives, go to:
http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/ccbc-net
and enter the following:
username: ccbc-net
password: Look4Posts
Received on Sun 16 Feb 2014 11:54:42 AM CST
