Polish and Polish American representation in children's literature published in the United States between 1968 and 1998: Exploring characterizations of an ethnicity within whiteness in books for children

Traditionally, the study of multicultural children's literature has been limited to children's texts representing people "of color"---of African, Asian, Native American, or Latina/o decent. Whiteness, the notion "of color" is polarized against, represents over eighty percent of the population of United States (1990 U.S.), but this singular categorization of whiteness does not take into account class, gender, and ethnic differences. By considering representation issues relating to an ethnicity within whiteness who's immigrants, and consequently who's culture, have been marginalized, this study explores ethnicity in children's literature in order to dismantle the perceived dominance of a single version of whiteness.;Drawing from Harris's (1993) premise that it is important for children to see their cultures represented in the books through which they grow literate, this research builds a case study which reports on and analyzes Polish and Polish American ethnic representation in children's literature published in the United States between 1968 and 1998---a period of time that includes Poles being dominated by Soviet communism, the fall of Soviet communism, and the rise of capitalism and democracy in Poland.;Using semiotic analysis, systems analysis, and content analysis as cornerstones of a qualitative study which considers over 109 books, this research explores patterns of cultural representation and misrepresentation in ethnic children's literature. The study continues by considering similarities between the children's literature and mainstream American cultural structures which historically have been used to reduce the significance of the heritage of Poles. It concludes by offering means through which the publishing industry in the U.S. might be politically and economically persuaded to generate higher quality children's literature relating to people of Polish decent in greater numbers.;This empirically based research considers issues of ethnic hegemony and the role of children's literature in hegemonic cultural production. Taking into account both text and illustrations, this research explores trends within the literature which arguably constitute foundations of bigotry against Polonians. In moving towards "multi" in multicultural literature and education to mean more than categories of race, this research seeks to work against constructed elements of culture which categorically dominate entire groups.