Clashing conceptions of multicultural literature: the case of Children’s and Youth Literature

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyse the different conceptions that exist of children’s and youth literature labelled as multicultural. Conceptions that emanate from two sets of academical discourses on this topic are compared, namely those originated in Spanish research centers and those proceeding from the USA. The analysis focuses on the criterions defining this literature: the aesthetic and formal, the thematic and representational, the authorship-based and the axiological. It is found that the different ways of conceiving multicultural children’s and youth literature relate to different ways of conceiving the cultural difference, as well as to different intervention proposals for situations in which the cultural diversity turns out to be troublesome.