Cinderella: Contrasting a Native American and Japanese folktale through multicultural literature perspective

This study explores children's stories originally found in the oral tradition of tales using multicultural perspectives to evaluate the use of authentic books which are a resource to teach children about diverse cultures. In order to show the folktale's cultural richness, two Cinderella variants from different cultural origins were compared and contrasted illustrating the Cinderella-like similarities and differences that make them part of their given culture. A checklist of multicultural aspects was developed and applied on the two books to demonstrate whether or not they are "authentic multicultural children's books". The results suggest that folktales are an asset to teach children about cultural diversity and that the Cinderella variant books are authentic children's multicultural literature. The findings of this study will assist teachers in selecting children's books that have genuine multicultural perspectives and that educators can also use stories from the oral tradition to make students understand about cultural diversity.