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Children’s Publishing and Black Britain, 1965-2015 pp 83–112Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Multicultural Education Movement, Anti-Racism and Publishing for Children, 1980–1995

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Part of the book series: Critical Approaches to Children's Literature ((CRACL))

Abstract

Beginning in the mid-1970s but intensifying following increased racial tensions in the 1980s, two sometimes compatible and sometimes antagonistic models for children’s literature about Black Britons provoked considerable conversation, among publishers but also in the popular media. Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism both focused on increasing the diverse content of children’s literature, but they had different political aims. Multicultural advocates wanted to celebrate the different cultures that made up Britain, but Anti-Racists did not believe that Multiculturalism alone could close the gap between white educators and law enforcement, who continued to see Black children as “problems,” and the new generation of British-born Black and Asian youth. These two philosophies, and the tensions between them, had direct effects on children’s publishing that are explored in this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Dear Billy and Other Stories included the following Nippers, all authored by Berg: Dear Billy, Knitting, Lesley’s Story, That Baby, Jimmy’s Story, Doing the Pools and Grandad’s Clock. Published in hard cover in 1991, Penguin reissued it in paperback in 1994.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Buffalo State College, Buffalo, New York, USA

    Karen Sands-O’Connor

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  1. Karen Sands-O’Connor
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Sands-O’Connor, K. (2017). The Multicultural Education Movement, Anti-Racism and Publishing for Children, 1980–1995. In: Children’s Publishing and Black Britain, 1965-2015. Critical Approaches to Children's Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57904-1_4

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