Pursuing Our Commitment – An Update from the CLA DEI Committee

By Grace Enriquez on behalf of the CLA DEI Committee

As children’s literature professionals, educators, and enthusiasts, we know our field faces challenging times ahead. Widespread misinformation and misunderstanding about educational theories and practices, coupled with fiery partisan rhetoric, have resulted in a swelling of bans and crackdowns on stories that work to make sure all children can find their voices, languages, histories, and lived experiences in books.
 
As delineated in the CLA Bylaws, the DEI Committee encompasses a steadfast commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusivity within CLA:

"The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Committee Chair and members shall help ensure CLA’s commitment to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusivity. The committee shall help create and/or review CLA policies and position statements shared with CLA members and/or the greater public. The committee shall work with membership and nominating committees for recruitment as well as help distribute calls for CLA-related applications. Committee members shall also serve as resources for CLA Standing Committee Chairs when they are developing materials and programs." 

 In these unsettling times, we reassert CLA’s pledge. This past year, led by stalwart past chairs Adam Crawley and Elizabeth Bemiss, the DEI Committee engaged in the following pursuits to support CLA’s commitment:

CLA Member Survey

The committee created and distributed the survey in November, a week prior to NCTE, and analyzed the results in December. The survey gathered and analyzed information from the CLA membership about career role and stage, education level, age, gender identity, languages read and/or spoken, race and ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, veteran status, and other identity information individual members wanted to share. The survey also asked about members’ experience and interests in children’s literature, ways CLA could be more accessible, suggestions for CLA to be more welcoming to diverse groups of people, and suggestions for improving the survey. Results were shared with the executive board. Stay tuned for next steps to help the organization determine ways to better support its DEI commitment!

DEI One-Pagers

Per our CLA charge, committee members continued the work begun in 2023 to create one-page guidance documents to help other CLA committees to support DEI goals in their own work. We hope to finalize these one-pagers and distribute them soon. 

Diverse Books We Love

To support educators’ work to promote social justice with diverse books, committee members shared a list of personally recommended books that foster DEI work through the CLA Blog. The post Sharing Books We “Love” to Support On-Going Work During Troubling Times was published in February 2023. Be on the lookout for personal “loves” from this year’s committee.

We look forward to buliding upon this important work and ensure that diversity, equity, and inclusion continue to drive our work with children and the books they read.

For more information about the DEI committee, please contact committee chair Grace Enriquez ([email protected]).

Grace Enriquez is professor of language and literacy and chair of the Ph.D. in Educational Studies program at Lesley University. Grace received the CLA research Award in 2013. She is current chair of the CLA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee.