A critical content analysis of children's literature featuring Black agriculturalists

There has recently been a push to include agricultural content in the core mainstream K-12 curriculum for all students. Agricultural literacy in the K-12 curriculum is essential to developing tomorrow’s future farmers and agricultural consumers. For various reasons the presence of African Americans in the field of agriculture has generally declined over the past century. Additionally, the contributions of African American agriculturalists are absent from the agricultural curriculum development framework. Using a qualitative critical content analysis, this study identifies and examines Black farmers in multicultural children’s literature in order to position Black farmers in the traditional K-12 curriculum. If children can see farming from a positive and empowering perspective, they might be inspired to pursue an agricultural career path and engage with science inquiry in the future.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Curriculum and Instruction

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Gwin, Candace Star

Contributors dc:contributor

• Harris, Violet J
• Moller, Karla J
• Willis, Arlette I
• Smith, Bobby J

• Agricultural literacy
• Black farmers
• critical content analysis
• food justice
• multicultural children’s literature
• critical theory

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Candace Gwin

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116054

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F116054