Diversity in Picture books Symposium

The Diversity in Picturebooks Symposium was held on the 24 November at Te Kura Toi Tangata Faculty of Education and included the launch of the Waikato Picturebook Research Unit (WaiPRU).

The Symposium was attended by over 50 librarians, teachers, academics and postgraduate students who listened to a programme of 14 speakers discussing diversity in picturebooks from the perspective of ethnicity, ability, gender, family, language, illustrations and translations.

The Symposium was organsied by Nicola Daly (left) from WaiPRU and the Research Unit launched by Professor Bronwen Cowie (right) from the Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research who also part sponsored the event along with Te Hononga, the School of Curriculum and Pedagogy.

The Symposium was a full day event that included each section within the programme ending with a discussion forum with some interesting perspectives on the availability and cataloging of books featuring diversity, the representations of same gender parent families, representations of refugee and migrant communities, among other topics.

All those who attended were able to view a large display of picturebooks which made for lively discussion.

A picturebook symposium will be hosted by WaiPRU each year in November, and suggestions for future themes were gathered from the attendees.