Abstract
Literacy socialization begins at home with books chosen by parents. Using a sociocultural perspective, the purpose of this study was to document Arab, Muslim parents’ (n = 118) preferences for children’s storybook illustrations in the United Arab Emirates. Open-ended questions were analyzed using the constant comparative method. Cultural gender schemes were highlighted. Results imply that some innocuous themes commonly found in storybooks reflecting Western values were perceived as culturally peripheral to parents from a Muslim background. Findings have implications for creating more culturally relevant children’s storybooks to improve the quantity and quality of home literacy experiences of Arab, Muslim families.
Highlights
It has been suggested that literacy and identity are social constructions (Lewis & del Valle, 2009; Moje & Luke, 2009) with an inextricable relationship to academic learning (Wortham, 2006)
This paper investigates which types of children’s storybook illustrations are accepted and rejected by Muslim nationals living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), contributing to the dearth of book selection literature on Muslim populations
The presentation of the results is structured around the major themes that evolved from the data about what Muslim, Arab parents prefer in children’s storybook illustrations
Summary
It has been suggested that literacy and identity are social constructions (Lewis & del Valle, 2009; Moje & Luke, 2009) with an inextricable relationship to academic learning (Wortham, 2006). Far from neutral, children’s storybooks are culture laden and reflect the values and beliefs of the source culture (Chick & Heilman-Houser, 2000; Cochran-Smith, 2001; Schudson, 1989).To illustrate, the Islamic Foundation avoided publishing children’s literature that depicted animate beings in the 1980s because Islam forbids image making, drawing or sculpting animate beings (Janson, 2012) Such restrictions were lifted by the late 1990s because many Muslim scholars agreed with the interpretation of sacred texts (the hadith) that there is an exception when it comes to toys and images used to entertain and teach children. Given that imagery in children’s literature is central to both the teaching and learning process, it begs the question of how cultural identity influences parents’ choices of storybooks for their children
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