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It’s waacist! Dolly Parton scheme giving children free books attacked as ‘white saviourism’

Dolly Parton has been accused of “white saviourism” for giving millions of free books to poor children.

The reading scheme, called Imagination Library, was launched by the country and western star in the US more than three decades ago. It now operates in the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia, and has been lauded for helping to drive up literacy rates.

It gives disadvantaged pupils the same access to books as their middle-class peers by sending high-quality titles directly to the homes of under-fives.

But according to a recently published academic paper, the award-winning scheme is racist by reinforcing notions of “white privilege and heteronormativity” and not representing enough cultural diversity, disability, trans and bisexual gender identities and non-traditional family structures.

The academic paper, by speech and language pathologist Jennifer Stone, published by the University of North Carolina, asserts that Dolly Parton’s philanthropy is “potentially dangerous” and smacks of “white savourism”.

Through its focus on “reading to succeed” and “perfecting parenting”, Parton’s Imagination Library scheme is “oppressive”, says Stone. Such themes subjugate children and “privilege a White, middle-class, cis-gendered, heteronormative, able-bodied norm,” it adds.

Let the University of North Carolina describe this further:

Doctoral dissertation takes deep dive into Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

For her doctoral dissertation, “Reading Power With and Through Dolly Parton's Imagination Library: A Critical Content Analysis,” Jennifer Stone, MS, CCC-SLP, examined the 60 books provided by Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library (DPIL) to the children who entered kindergarten in 2022. Established in 1995, DPIL is a book gifting program that mails free books to children in participating areas from birth until age five.

Millions of children nationwide received the books. Today the program is publicly funded for all children in 21 states. Given the wide reach of the program—which is expected to continue expanding—Stone undertook this research because of her desire to understand how the discourses of race, gender, class, ability, and literacy are represented in books that are distributed to an entire community. Stone, who successfully defended her dissertation this semester and will receive her PhD in May, received the James J. Gallagher Dissertation Award from the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) in 2023.

She says that this common reading experience provides a community literacy environment, which she investigated through both deductive and inductive methods. Through a page-by-page analysis of the texts, she examined the frequency and types of mentions of race, gender, class, ability, and literacy. In addition, she explored how these elements were represented and the impact they might have on families who read the books.

She discovered that DPIL—which she says is evidence-oriented and interested in best practices—chooses books that do a good job of including frequent representations of racial diversity, with inclusive pictures and illustrations. However, there is less authentic representation of authors and illustrators, with mostly white illustrators and authors creating stories about children of color. All the books perpetuate gender norms and heteronormative relationships. Similarly, the distributed books lack diverse family structure relationships and focus on the middle class. Additionally, characters’ families in books rarely engage in the family reading practice the books are intended to promote.

This spring, Stone shared her findings with the leadership at the Dollywood Foundation, which runs the library. She noted that the books often conflate race and gender; the five families in the books who do not live in single-family homes are all families of color. Some of their apartments are depicted as places from which children needed to or wanted to escape. The books do not represent diversity of ability, since all the characters are portrayed as fit and able. Stone says that while her research was well received, she does not know if it will impact the book selection process.

… In her inductive analysis, Stone discovered three themes: reading to succeed; living the American dream; and perfecting parenting. She says that these reflect the idea that everybody can grow up and live the American dream if they follow the standard path. In Stone’s perception, the reading tips included on the flaps of the books distributed by the library place a heavy burden on parents as the responsible parties for ensuring their children are ready for kindergarten.

“I am concerned about putting pressure on parents,” she says. “I have a great deal of interest in supporting parents, listening to them, and understanding their lived experiences and wisdom and supporting them in resisting the pressures that I see society placing on them.” She believes that the United States needs to do a better job supporting parents and recognizing that systems must be in place to ensure families’ success.  She says that the DPIL collection of books has a theme of childism, seeing children as being less than other citizens in society, with the expectation that children’s job is to grow up and be part of society rather than being valued for who they are in each moment.

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Her entire university is terminally infected, and beyond recovery:

Stone says that the Gallagher Award was a huge honor particularly since it was decided on by her FPG colleagues. “The award felt like a vote of confidence in this work that I felt a little tender about,” she says. “The impetus of this research was my experience and concern about how I had contributed to systemic oppressions. The award felt like my colleagues saying, 'This is important work that matters to us and our communities.”