CLPE’s Reflecting Realities Report
The Reflecting Realities Report is an important report that many educators, researchers and many involved with children’s publishing will be reading today and over the weekend. Ambitious and vital, this certainly provides food for thought.
Today the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) released 5 years of data in their annual Reflecting Realities Survey of Ethnic Representation within UK Children’s Literature showing that 20% of children’s books published in 2021 feature a minority ethnic character, a significant increase from the 4% reported in 2017.
The annual CLPE survey, which is funded by Arts Council England, launched in 2017 with the key focus of determining the extent and quality of ethnic minority characters featured within Picturebooks, Fiction and Non-Fiction for ages 3–11 published in the UK. The five years of reporting provide benchmark statistics which have seen a sustained increase in the number and percentage of books that contain
characters from racial minorities; a standard which is vital in ensuring all children have the opportunity to become readers by providing books where they can see themselves, their experience and the wider
world reflected in a meaningful and rich way.
The increase of representative titles published also corresponds with an increase in the presence of ethnic minority main characters, with 9% of the children’s books published in 2021 featuring minority
ethnic main characters, up from 1% in 2017. However, while this slow but positive growth is to be welcomed there remains a significant disparity between the demographic make up of story worlds
compared to the world as actually experienced by young readers.
For further information, quotes from those involved and their supporters and to read the full report, please head over to https://clpe.org.uk/research/clpe-survey-ethnic-representation-within-uk-childrens-literature-2017-2022-november-2022