Aim. School segregation is a common theme of children’s books on minority groups living in the United States. Although it is primarily associated with black-white racial divisions, currently it also concerns white-Latino or rich-poor disparities. The aim of this paper is to analyse children’s picture books featuring Latino and African American characters who participate in the struggle against school segregation. The authors of the books, being members of racial minorities themselves, offer differing perspectives on the problem. Although they criticise school segregation, they also focus on the white perspective and the reasons why integrating schools has always been hard to achieve. Methods. The study analyses the visual and verbal narratives of selected picture books using a variety of methods for examining this literary format. Among others, it applies the theory of picture book analysis by Martin Painter, William Moebius, Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott. Results. The article shows that despite the existing scholarship on race-related problems in American schools, children’s literature seems to be the medium which tries to explain the problem to youngsters being directly involved in the system of segregation. Conclusions. The results can be useful to educators who cope with the issue of racial diversity in American schools. They may consider using selected titles of children’s literature as teaching aids assisting students from minority groups in the process of self-development and empowerment.

中文翻译：

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美国儿童图画书中关于学校隔离问题的不同观点

目标。学校隔离是儿童书籍中有关生活在美国的少数群体的一个常见主题。尽管它主要与黑白种族分化有关，但目前也涉及白人拉丁裔或贫富差距。本文的目的是分析参加反学校隔离斗争的拉丁美洲人和非裔美国人角色的儿童图画书。这些书籍的作者本身就是少数族裔的成员，对此问题提出了不同的看法。尽管他们批评学校隔离，但他们也侧重于白人观点以及为什么融合学校始终难以实现的原因。方法。这项研究使用多种方法来分析所选图画书的视觉和言语叙述，以检查这种文学形式。除其他外，它采用了马丁·画家（Martin Painter），威廉·莫比乌斯（William Moebius），玛丽亚·尼古拉耶娃（Maria Nikolajeva）和Carole Scott的图画书分析理论。结果。文章表明，尽管美国学校中已有关于种族相关问题的奖学金，但儿童文学似乎是试图向直接参与种族隔离制度的年轻人解释这一问题的媒介。结论。该结果对于应对美国学校种族多样性问题的教育工作者很有用。他们可能会考虑使用儿童文学的特定标题作为教具，以帮助少数群体的学生自我发展和增强能力。文章表明，尽管美国学校中已有关于种族相关问题的奖学金，但儿童文学似乎是试图向直接参与种族隔离制度的年轻人解释这一问题的媒介。结论。该结果对于应对美国学校种族多样性问题的教育工作者很有用。他们可能会考虑使用儿童文学的特定标题作为教具，以帮助少数群体的学生自我发展和赋权。文章表明，尽管美国学校中已有关于种族相关问题的奖学金，但儿童文学似乎是试图向直接参与种族隔离制度的年轻人解释这一问题的媒介。结论。该结果对于应对美国学校种族多样性问题的教育工作者很有用。他们可能会考虑使用儿童文学的特定标题作为教具，以帮助少数群体的学生自我发展和赋权。