Characters with disabilities in contemporary children's novels: Portraits of three authors in a frame of Canadian texts

• Author / Creator

  Brenna, Beverley A.

• This qualitative study explored influences on three Canadian authors who present characters with disabilities in children’s fiction. Portraits of these authors are framed by a discussion of contemporary Canadian children’s novels, offering curriculum ideas within the framework of critical literacy. The research questions were: What patterns in the depictions of characters with disabilities appear in the context of Canadian novels, published since 1995, for children and young adults? What motivates and informs selected contemporary children’s authors’ construction of fictional characters with disabilities?
  Portraiture was used as a variation on case study research. Methods for data collection and analysis included semi-structured interviews, personal narratives, and content analysis regarding three author portraits, including a self-portrait; content analysis was also applied to fifty children’s novels. Bakhtin’s conceptualization of the literary chronotope was utilized as a lens to explore aspects of time and space ‘internal’ and ‘external’ to these texts, and further delineated by aspects of time, social context, and place—three categories borrowed from the field of narrative inquiry.
  Research on classic fiction illuminates particular patterns and trends regarding authors’ portrayals of characters with disabilities. This dissertation has identified and explored contemporary trends. While disability figured in all of the children’s novels in the study sample, ethnicity was strikingly absent, as were books for junior readers ages eight to eleven. The inquiry utilized Dresang’s Radical Change theory to identify the landscape on which books about characters with disabilities reside, supporting the metaphorical conceptualization of the radical changes in children’s literature as a ‘rhizome’.
  The resonance of what has informed authors, in addition to the exploration of the children’s books in this study, offers perspectives that impact critical literacy classroom approaches delineated within Lewison, Flint, and Van Sluys’ four dimensions framework: disrupting the commonplace, interrogating multiple viewpoints, focusing on socio-political issues, and taking action and promoting social justice. The latter dimension, while not accomplished through reading the texts themselves, may be approached through attention to author influences. The implications of the study relate to curriculum development as well as promote further research in Education, English Literature, and Disability Studies. An annotated bibliography is included.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Bakhtin's chronotope
  • Critical literacy
  • Characters with disabilities
  • Canadian children's authors
  • Radical Change
  • Children's literature
  • Portraiture

• Graduation date

  Spring 2010

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3C68C

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.