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RebekahDegener_Dissertation.pdf (3.87 MB)

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Strides Toward Equality: The Portrayal of Black Female Athletes in Children’s Picturebooks

Bruce, Rebekah May
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu154351163594203

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, EDU Teaching and Learning.
This dissertation examines nine narrative non-fiction picturebooks about Black American female athletes. Contextualized within the history of children’s literature and American sport as inequitable institutions, this project highlights texts that provide insights into the past and present dominant cultural perceptions of Black female athletes. I begin by discussing an eighteen-month ethnographic study conducted with racially minoritized middle school girls where participants analyzed picturebooks about Black female athletes. This chapter recognizes Black girls as readers and intellectuals, as well as highlights how this project serves as an example of a white scholar conducting crossover scholarship. Throughout the remaining chapters, I rely on cultural studies, critical race theory, visual theory, Black feminist theory, and Marxist theory to provide critical textual and visual analysis of the focal picturebooks. Applying these methodologies, I analyze the authors and illustrators’ representations of gender, race, and class. Chapter Two discusses the ways in which the portrayals of track star Wilma Rudolph in Wilma Unlimited and The Quickest Kid in Clarksville demonstrate shifting cultural understandings of Black female athletes. Chapter Three argues that Nothing but Trouble and Playing to Win draw on stereotypes of Black Americans as “deviant” in order to construe tennis player Althea Gibson as a “wild child.” Chapter Four discusses the role of family support in the representations of Alice Coachman in Queen of the Track and Touch the Sky. Chapter Five analyzes the ways in which Black female ballerinas are speaking directly to Black girl readers through the use of peritext in Firebird and Trailblazer, and Chapter Six examines the representation of a shared sisterhood in The Golden Girls of Rio. Ultimately, I argue that picturebooks that feature Black women in sports offer both harmful stereotypes and positive possibilities for Black girl readers.
Michelle Abate (Advisor)
Patricia Enciso (Committee Member)
Ruth Lowery (Committee Member)
Dietsch Alia (Committee Member)
363 p.
African American Studies; Education; Elementary Education; Literacy; Literature
Picturebooks, Black Female Athletes, Sports Literacy, Non-fiction picturebooks

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Bruce, R. M. (2018). Strides Toward Equality: The Portrayal of Black Female Athletes in Children’s Picturebooks [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu154351163594203

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Bruce, Rebekah. Strides Toward Equality: The Portrayal of Black Female Athletes in Children’s Picturebooks. 2018. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu154351163594203.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Bruce, Rebekah. "Strides Toward Equality: The Portrayal of Black Female Athletes in Children’s Picturebooks." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu154351163594203

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu154351163594203
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.