Lit in Colour research

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Very late to posting this, but the Lit in Colour research report launched at the end of June. One of the most exciting things about working with Penguin on this research was the expertise of their communications team. I've learned a lot about ways to get research picked up, but also it is so exciting to see beautiful graphics conveying some of the main points of what the research found. 









The most shocking (and yet not that surprising finding) was that fewer than 1% of GCSE students answer on a text by a writer of colour in their literature examination. That drops to 0.1% when we bring gender in as well. (Overall between 6 and 7% of students answer on a novel or play by a woman - 6% of 19th century novel answers were on the female-authored texts, although they make up c. 40% of the options. The 1% of answers on modern female-authored texts might be an entirely different cohort of students, or it might overlap entirely with the 6%, hence the uncertainty.)


The other really exciting part of doing this research is the sheer amount of amazing texts authored by people of colour that I've encountered. My not-quite-4 year old son's library has expanded rapidly, and I have also read some excellent stuff. 

If you would like to read the report in full (and I hope you will if you haven't already) then you can download it here: Elliott, V., Nelson-Addy, L., Chantiluke, R. & Courtney, M. (2021) Lit in Colour Diversity in Literature in English Schools. London: Penguin & Runnymede Trust. A quick read version can be found here. 

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