| By 2020 there will be 47% more Hispanic children aged 5 to 13 than there are today in the United States. One way to dispel racial myths and stereotypes of minorities is to include multicultural literature in today's diverse classrooms. Although past research has claimed that multicultural literature positively affects racial attitudes, no qualitative study has described what occurred during reader response to Latino/a literature in an ethnically mixed group of fifth-grade students.;This 8-week case study focused on the written and oral responses of 6 students, 3 White and 3 Latino/a, as they read and discussed two novels, Felita and Taking Sides. Sociocultural and reader response theory provided the theoretical framework for the research. Based on these theories, students brought their personal stories to a literature group where they negotiated race through transactional literature discussions (TLD). Additionally, 3 fifth-grade classroom teachers and the ESL teacher at one elementary school were asked to give their world views of race. Data, analyzed through the constant comparative method, included observation, interviews, the researcher's reflexive journal, student journals, and literature group transcripts.;During reader response to Latino/a literature, a forum was created in which race was discussed, a community of readers was formed, and minority status was affirmed. The data suggested that White students in the group showed slight shifts in their racial attitudes and beliefs whereas Latino/a students showed no change. One limitation of the study was that it was impossible to distinguish between authentic and socially acceptable answers by students regarding race.;During interviews, teachers reported they lacked instructional time for teaching core subjects, let alone for presenting multicultural education on a regular basis. Therefore, implications for further research call for investigating the role that teachers play in influencing students' attitudes through more concerted efforts to incorporate multicultural literature in their daily curriculum. The results of this study support the call for education and administrators to make a schoolwide effort for introducing reader response to multicultural literature at all grade levels. |
