The Value of Multiculturalism and Language in Children's Literature: A Critical Study

Abstract

Celebrating language diversity, cultural pluralism, and multiculturalism has long been seen as a sign of cultural openness and awareness in children's literature. Many good examples on cultural pluralism are seen in children’s books that celebrate the value of humanity as a universal concept rather than only a representation of national identity. The paper emphasizes the invitation to call upon pluralism as well as the cultural diversity which constitutes a new vision in children’s literature. Despite the fact that children’s literature has developed over an extended period of time, one has to understand the role that cultural diversity and its representation in children’s literature have in developing education and classrooms’ curriculum. However, as the paper showed us, multicultural children’s literature is still growing as many scholars and writers began to realize the importance of multicultural education in terms of social, ideological, and linguistic aspects.