Demonstrations of Agency in Contemporary International Children’s Literature: An Exploratory Critical Content Analysis Across Personal, Social, and Cultural Dimensions

Abstract

International children’s literature has the potential to create global experiences and cultural insights for young people confronted with limited and biased images of the world offered by media. The current inquiry was designed to explore, through a critical content analysis approach, international children’s literature in which characters demonstrate personal, social, and cultural agency in a variety of global contexts. Sources for the literature were various award lists published in the United States from 2000 to 2013 from which 27 touchstone books were selected to analyze intensively. Results from this exploration of literature indicate that there is an array of characters and contexts that provide positive images of agency in youth in the global community. Because such books have the potential to foster positive global insights and support readers’ development of agency across the three dimensions, international children’s literature must continue to be explored and shared with students.