CLPE Reflecting Realities - Survey of Ethnic Representation within UK Children’s Literature (November 2020)
This is the third Reflecting Realities report (focused on diversity and inclusion in children's books) and it was published in November 2020.
The Reflecting Realities report, identifies and evaluates representation within picture books, fiction and non-fiction for ages 3–11 and provides a benchmark to track and understand progress and a toolkit to support both producers and consumers of children’s literature to be more critically reflective in the move towards a more inclusive future. This report looks at the children's literature published in the UK in the 2019 calendar year.
The report's key points:
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7% of the children’s books published in the UK over the last 3 years feature characters of colour.
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The number of children’s books published in the UK over the last three years (2017-19) featuring characters from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background has increased to 10% in 2019, rising from 4% in 2017, 7% in 2018 to 10% in 2019, according to CLPE.
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CLPE’s research shows that characters from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background remain significantly under-representated in comparison to the UK primary school population where 33.5% of children are from a minority ethnic background.
Illustrations © Ken Wilson-Max and reproduced with his kind permission.
Booklet design: Ben Cotterill
