Ethnic Diversity in Children’s Books in the Netherlands

Abstract

The present study examined the representation of authors, illustrators, and characters of color in books for young children (6 years old and under) that (1) have won awards, (2) were purchased most often, and (3) were borrowed most often from libraries in the Netherlands from 2009 to 2018. Factors influencing the prominence of characters were explored. In total, 64 books and 2053 characters were coded, and representation statistics were compared to statistics of the national population. Results suggest a slight underrepresentation of authors of color as compared to population statistics, and an underrepresentation of characters of color as compared to the target audience. Results on some factors influencing prominence suggest that White characters and characters of color play an equally prominent role in the books. Results on other factors, however, suggest that characters of color, especially females, are less prominent in terms of their role in the story, whether they have a name, and in relation to the number of other characters in the book. The results provide an insight in to ethnic diversity in popular books for young children in the Netherlands, and show some room for improvement in terms of representation and prominence of characters of color, so that children of color might have more opportunities to identify with characters and that readers could be exposed to ethnic diversity as represented in society.