The maze of stereotyping in Catalan Children’s and Young’s people literature

Abstract

Although diversity has always been present in Spanish schools, the incorporation of cultures that were not very common in the country was a stirring in the 1990s for the revitalization of intercultural education. But in our opinion, there is a significant lack of studies about how this new multiculturalism has influenced in society, and especially in non-curricular materials among which the Children’s and Young’s people Literature is a fundamental component. It is important, then, and necessary to check what treatment has been made of multiculturalism in this kind of literature and stereotyping is undoubtedly one of the most sensitive aspects reflected in the works. This article deal with a research carried out on a total of 95 children’s and youth books in Catalan selected through prizes, reviews and selection lists. The goal of the global research about Catalan books was to analyse the presence of multiculturalism and interculturality. However we found that multiculturalism was often carried out through stereotypes, especially stereotypes about whole cultures and foreigners. This is partly due to the format of the works, but also because the society they are trying to reflect.