Cultural diversity values embedded in children’s literature

Abstract EN

This study investigated the cultural diversity values embedded in children’s stories of the age of 8-12 years in the Arab World presented by the characters of the stories taking, Jordan as a case study.

The following questions were raised: 1- What are the cultural diversity values embedded in children stories for the age of 8-12 years? 2- What are the of characters in children stories in terms of gender (male – female), age (child-adult-old), and types (human-animal) that represented these values? A thorough revision was included for the stories of children.

Thirty-three stories were chosen and analyzed using a developed checklist of the cultural diversity values, and Child, Potter & Levine (1971) classification of characters.

Findings revealed that the cultural diversity values in children’s stories were not sufficient as they should be according to the used scale