Diverse literature in schools in Wales and the wider UK
By Dr Sarah Olive, Communication and Culture, Aston University
English creates new readers. English also creates resources to support all readers, because English also creates problems. ‘English’ here primarily means the subject encountered in educational settings, not the language. My work on subject English since the Black Lives Matter protests has involved creating resources to diversify the literature students at school and university are taught and recommended. This work has been undertaken in both university English and Education departments, in England and Wales, in English and Welsh (the latter largely facilitated through collaborators and translators, rather than my own scant knowledge). These resources focus mainly on authors’ and characters’ ethnic diversity. However, creating them has also involved recognising and supporting authors’ and readers’ linguistic diversity.
This series of #EnglishCreates blog posts focuses on varieties of English. Variety is often invoked in definitions of diversity and vice versa. The two words are sometimes used synonymously. However, ‘diversity’ has developed a specialised meaning in recent decades. It emphasises objectives for – and practices of – representation in relation to people with protected characteristics and marginalised identities. Inclusion, equality, and equity are related terms, while EDI and DEI are related acronyms. They put a greater emphasis than diversity alone on what should be achieved and how. Author and activist Verna Myers frames the difference thus: ‘diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance’. I predominantly use ‘diversity’ in my work on literature in schools, despite its limitations, because it was the more frequently used term in the policies and schools with which I worked.
The word ‘diversity’ has its problems. Much more concerningly, diversity as outlined above is under attack in many countries. Examples include right-wing politicians and their followers defunding work on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (UK Reform and US Republican ‘government efficiencies’) and deriding celebrations of multiculturalism in culture, media and sport (Trump on Bad Bunny at the Superbowl). I won’t attempt here to capture the harms to individuals and groups associated with, or done in the name of, this repudiation of diversity. Diversity as a concept, practice, and reality of many modern populations is being disparaged by populist regimes, who treat it as zero sum game (more for them = less for you) and ignore evidence that it is broadly beneficial (everybody wins).
Research shows that diverse representation benefits all readers: students who belong to majority communities and those that are minoritised. Engaging with diverse literature boosts attainment, sense of belonging, self-esteem, and empathy. The Lit in Colour report, celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, details the benefits of diversifying the curriculum and offers resources to support teachers, parents, students and policy-makers to diversify the literary texts read, taught, set and assessed.
Reading matters because it demonstrably benefits people’s wellbeing, qualifications, careers and income, as well as less quantifiable things like our emotions and imaginations. However, Rudine Sims Bishop explains that motivation to read can be low if readers don’t have access to books that offer 1) mirrors of their own lives, 2) windows onto the lives of others, and 3) sliding doors that enable movement between the two. Diverse representation maximally draws students into reading, so they can experience reading’s profound, lifelong benefits.
