The Failure of a Colour-Blind Approach to Mitigate the Racism of Enid Blyton's Twentieth-Century Children's Fiction.
This paper analyses the textual and visual modifications made to Enid Blyton's Adventure (1944–1955) series. Using Blyton's revised books as a case study, I employ critical race theory and critical white studies to demonstrate the futility of adopting a colour-blind approach to mitigate the racism o...
| Publicado en: | Children's Literature in Education Vol. 56; no. 2; pp. 332 - 349 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Jun2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=185303897&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 185303897 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00456713 CLE jtl: Children's Literature in Education issn: 00456713 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun2025 vid: 56 iid: 2 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 185303897 10.1007/s10583-023-09568-2 ppf: 332 ppct: 17 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 754KB tig: atl: The Failure of a Colour-Blind Approach to Mitigate the Racism of Enid Blyton's Twentieth-Century Children's Fiction. aug: au: Morrissey, Siobhán affil: https://ror.org/03bea9k73 University of Galway, Galway, Ireland su: Color blindness Racism Blyton, Enid Race identity Critical race theory sug: subj: Color blindness Racism Blyton, Enid Race identity Critical race theory keyword: Children's Literature Colonialism Communication and Culture Literary Studies Studies in Human Society Sociology Critical Race Theory Critical White Studies Enid Blyton Language Whiteness ab: This paper analyses the textual and visual modifications made to Enid Blyton's Adventure (1944–1955) series. Using Blyton's revised books as a case study, I employ critical race theory and critical white studies to demonstrate the futility of adopting a colour-blind approach to mitigate the racism of older, classic children's texts. Colour-blindness as a policy is criticised by scholars of critical race theory for its ineffectiveness in resolving the problems of racism. While this approach is perceived by children's literature publishers as a straightforward, non-disruptive solution to prolong the lifeline of texts, the implications of erasing or concealing the racial identities of characters of colour are ignored by publishers and editors of Blyton's books. The edits made to her books are confined to superficial changes which fail to alter the texts' ideological foundations: Blyton's modernised texts retain the core values of imperialism - the supremacy of the white, English race and the "rightful" position of dominance that white Englishness occupies - but in a modernised format which is ostensibly racially 'colour-blind'. Through analysing the evolving versions of Blyton's fiction, I demonstrate how applying critical white studies to children's literature facilitates a deeper understanding of the ways in which whiteness structures and determines social hierarchies in children's texts. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Children's Literature in Education is a copyright of Springer, 2025. All Rights Reserved. item: Children's Literature in Education holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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