Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching - National University

changes in her behavior: "I’m different now because I know that a lot of people don’t like a
certain kind of person, so I learned to be nicer to all kinds of people. I also learned to stand up
for me and for other people that would be picked on or disliked."
Overall, the findings substantiated that the use of multicultural literature coupled with
dialogic and written responses did lead students to express and exhibit attitudinal changes.
Changes occurred in students’ perceptions due in part to the extended time given students to
discuss and write their understandings. The time allowed during the read-alouds for students to
write and talk amongst themselves provided them with the opportunity to articulate their
understanding of diversity and to experience and respect the lives of others. In this study, the
experience of engaging with a text through discussion and writing was transformative. Students
exhibited heightened awareness, acceptance, and respect for people different from themselves;
gained new knowledge about the values, beliefs, and social practices of cultures other than their
own; and increased their empathy toward others. There was an increased understanding and
acceptance by students of their own culture and of cultural similarities and differences. Finally,
students did develop an increased understanding of prejudice, bias, and tolerance and moved
from mere acceptance of differences to levels of avoidance of prejudicial behavior.
Study Implications
The innovative critical literacy practice demonstrated in this study has four important
implications for education within our diverse society: 1) the need to provide an environment with
multiple opportunities for students to hear, read and discuss multicultural literature; 2) the need
for a critical literacy stance in reading and responding to multicultural literature; 3) the need for
teachers to be adequately trained in critical literacy and multicultural literature; and 4) the need
for classrooms that allow students the opportunity to respond to and act on their new
understandings.
Today’s classrooms are more diverse requiring educators to create spaces that foster
meaningful and transformative learning. The importance of creating an inclusive classroom
environment has been identified in the Standards of the English Language Arts jointly designed
by the International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Council of Teachers of English
(NCTE). These standards state that students should read works “that reflect the diversity of the
United States population in terms of gender, age, social class, religion, and ethnicity” (NCTE,
1996, p. 28) and that teachers should consider students’ interests carefully when choosing works
for inclusion in the curriculum. The Standards recognize the necessity of utilizing multicultural
literature and providing diversity in students’ reading options. Multicultural literature should
represent all groups of students within schools and classrooms including literature about culture,
race, class, language, and ability differences. It is imperative that teachers share a range of
multicultural literature and carefully select books that are anti-biased to the fullest extent
possible.
As noted in this study, exposure to quality multicultural literature helps children
appreciate differences among ethnic groups, develop new perspectives, and eliminate
ethnocentrism. By reading stories about their own culture, children have opportunities to see how
others go through experiences similar to theirs, to develop strategies to cope with issues in their
lives, and to identify with their culture. Rudine Sims Bishop (2007) maintained that students who
do not see their culture reflected in the literature they read may believe that they have little or no
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