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Investigating Shifts in Diverse Family Structures in Newbery Award and Honor Books Utilizing U.S. Census Data, 1930–2010

2015; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 54; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19388071.2015.1061072

1938-8063

Shannon Marie Despain, Michael O. Tunnell, Bradford P. Wilcox, Timothy G. Morrison,

Family Dynamics and Relationships

Newbery Award and Honor books are a representation of children's literature, but family structures portrayed in them have not previously been studied. This prescriptive content analysis considered 87 contemporary realistic fiction Newbery winners and runners-up since the 1930s that portray families in English-speaking, Western settings. The family structures included in these books were compared with the various family structures reported in U.S. Census records. Results showed that the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s did not represent the actual family structures of their time periods. After the Age of New Realism began in the mid 1960s, the family structures in the books more closely matched family structures in the Census. The most recent books include many diverse family structures, but do not include traditional families.