Jamaican Children's Literature
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Jamaican Children’s Literature: A Critical Multicultural Analysis of Text and Illustration in Jamaican Picturebooks for Children Published Between 1997 – 2012 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Wendy Scott Richards IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Lee Galda, Advisor July, 2013 Wendy Scott Richards, July, 2013 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Lee Galda for showing me this was possible. It is a high privilege to have been one of her academic advisees. Thanks to her instruction and patient guidance, I am a better person and scholar of children’s literature. I press forward with all I have learned about children’s literature, bringing her voice and her great influence to my own reading and into my classroom, passing it forward to teacher candidates and to young readers of children’s literature in the US and in Jamaica. I thank Dr. Lori Helman and Dr. Nicola Alexander for their instruction and guidance along the way. I gained significant knowledge of English Learners and of educational policy from their classes and I benefitted greatly from their influence and suggestions as part of my dissertation committee. I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Sarah Smedman, who advised me for my master’s degree in reading and my thesis in children’s literature at Minnesota State University, Moorhead, and now for my doctoral dissertation in literacy at the University of Minnesota. For sharing her time, her expertise in children’s literature and her loving guidance as my research took shape, I am forever grateful. The friendship we have enjoyed for 20 years has been a blessing in my life. I wish to recognize and thank my husband, Wayland Richards, for his support in finishing this degree. My extended Jamaican family provided me with so many rich cultural experiences and so much practice speaking patois. Thank you, dear Richards’ family, for helping and supporting me, and especially Mary, for helping me to shop for picturebooks in Jamaica. ii I am overflowing with gratitude for the love and support of my parents, Don and Lynn Burgett. For their gracious childcare services, and for all manner of support they have given me, I am truly grateful. I also wish to express my thanks to Sir Arthur, Lady Elaine and Andrea for their kindness and support through the years. Kind friends encouraged me along the way and for those thoughtful, timely words, I am so grateful. Martika, I dedicate this work to you, for you are my inspiration and my joy. Thank you for your sweet prayers and your support, my daughter, a reader of Jamaican children’s literature. Soli Deo Gloria. iii ABSTRACT This study, on the 50th anniversary of Jamaica’s independence, positions children as subjects of what they read, in a society where the educational system is based on the vestiges of colonial rule. It is an inquiry into the nature and ideological content of selected Jamaican children’s picturebooks written by Jamaican authors or authors living in Jamaica, published in the last 15 years. It is crucial to understand those ideologies and how they align with the values of a newly independent nation. As the Jamaican picturebooks in this study were written in a postcolonial society, their ideologies potentially involve the social, political, and cultural themes including the power relations of race, class and gender that postcolonial theory and multicultural theory address. Therefore, this study examines the text and illustrations of selected Jamaican picturebooks using critical content analysis and critical multicultural analysis. Results show that Jamaican picturebooks in this sample reflect postcolonial initiatives and underlying ideologies congruent with multicultural and postcolonial theories which stress independent thinking, freedom, power and agency. There is hopefulness and inspiration in this sample of Jamaican children’s literature which is evident through the characters, the language, and an undercurrent of a Jamaican vibe expressed through a combination of reggae music and clever word play that permeates many of the stories. Implications for young readers include the possibility of the experiences they have while reading this literature being transformational, as posited by transactional theory. Postcolonial literary theory and multicultural theory help us to discern what in Jamaican picturebooks might help young readers to 1) achieve a sense of iv national identity, 2) gain knowledge of and pride in their own culture, and 3) build the confidence to think independently and provide the leadership essential to building a free nation. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………….. i ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………. v LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………… xii LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………...……… xii LIST OF APPENDICES…………………………………………………………… xiii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………….. 1 My Jamaican Journey……………………………………………………………… 2 Informal Literacy Conversations………………………………………..…. 2 My Jamaican Daughter………………….…………………………………. 3 Discovery of Resources…………………………………………………..... 5 Context for the Study…………………………………….………………………… 9 Jamaican History………………………………………………………….... 9 Jamaican People……………………………………………………………. 11 Jamaican Language………………………………………………………… 12 Theoretical Focus of the Study…………………………………………………….. 13 Research Questions……………………………………………………………….... 16 Definitions……………………………………………………….…………………. 17 Conclusion………………………………………………………………...……….. 25 CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE……………………………….. 26 State of Education in Jamaica: Past and Present………………………………….. 26 vi Colonial Vestiges that Divide…………………………………………….... 28 Language: privileging SJE over JC……………………………… 28 Tiered exam system………………………………………………... 33 Tiered teacher training system…………………………………….. 36 Educational resources……………………………………………… 41 Jamaica’s Literacy Challenges…………………………………………….. 42 Underprepared workforce…………………………………………. 43 Brain-drain...………………………………………………………. 44 Illiteracy and violence……………………………………………... 45 Poverty…………………………………………………………….. 48 Quality of education……………………………………………….. 50 Resources for infrastructure development…………………………. 52 Ministry of Education: Reform Efforts………………..…………………… 53 Vision and mission of the Ministry of Education………………..… 53 Literacy reform……………………………………………………. 56 Jamaica’s Literacy Crossroads…………………………………………………….. 60 Children’s Literature in Jamaica: Past and Present………………………………… 63 Literature of the British Empire…………………………………………….64 British Colonial children’s literature……..…………………………67 Racial mythology…………………………………………....69 West Indians in British Colonial children’s literature…….. 70 Development of Jamaican Children’s Literature…………………………... 74 vii Anancy. …………………………………………………………….75 Great griots…………………………………………………………77 Language in storytelling and print………………………………….77 Documentation……………………………………………….......... 78 Jamaican children’s literature in schools…………………………. .79 Increased publication…………………………………………….....80 Well known Jamaican authors……………………………………...81 Reading trends among Jamaican children………………………….82 Why Children’s Literature Matters………………………………………………....85 Theoretical Constructs…………………………………………………...… 86 Transactional Theory of Reading………………………………………..… 87 Implications of transactional theory…………………….… ……… 92 Postcolonial Literary Theory……………………………………………….97 The subaltern in postcolonial literature…………………………….100 Postcolonial theory and children’s literature……………………….101 Postcolonial literary analysis…………………………………………....103 Multicultural Theory………………………………………………………..106 Multiculturalism…………………………………………………….106 Critical multiculturalism…………………………………………… 107 Multicultural children’s literature…………..……………………… 108 Conclusion………………………………………….……………………………… 112 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY….……………………………………………. 114 viii Parameters for Text Selection………………………………………………………115 Texts for Analysis……………………..……………………………………116 Genre………………………………………………………………. 117 Collection of the sample……………………………………………117 Research Questions………………………………………………………………... 118 Reliability and Validity through Procedure……………………………….. 119 Research procedures for initial steps…….…………………………120 Reading procedures for each step…………………………………..121 Part I: Initial Analysis…………………………………………………………...... 122 Part II: Picturebook Identification and Summary………………………………….122 Part III: Elements of Literature and Evaluation of Content……………………...... 123 Part IV: Analysis of illustrations and Visual Features…………………………….124 Part V: Critical Content Analysis of JCL…….……………………………………125 Part VI: Critical Multicultural Analysis of JCL……………………………………130 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….135 CHAPTER IV: CRITICAL CONTENT ANALYSIS FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION………………………………………………......136 Part I: Initial Analysis………..…………………………………………………… 136 Aesthetic Response and Global Impressions……………………………… 136 Quality Rankings...…………………………………………………………137 Gender and Ethnic Background of Authors and Illustrators……………….139 Publication Information and Production Format……..…………………….141 Bonus Materials…………………………………………………………….143 ix Discussion…………………………………………………………………..143 Part II: Literary/CCA Analysis and Discussion……………………………………143 Setting in Text and Illustration………………………………………..……143 Specific settings…..………………………………………………...145 Tropical beauty……………………………………………………..147 Jamaican homes…………………………………………………….148 Plot in Text and Illustration…………………………...……………………149 Characterization in Text and Illustration…………………………………...152 Race…………………………………………………………………153