Diversity in Books
Just listened to Bookrageous podcast 82 (from September 2015).
The 9 dimensions of diversity
Race
Sexual Orientation
Religion
Nationality
Ability / Disability
Socio-economic group/Social class
Gender
Ethnic group
Geographic Region
So I can use this as a checklist for my reading to see how diverse my reading is.
When considering diversity within books you need to think about how positive the representation is and also how authentic it is. Authenticity does not depend on the writer actually embodyng the dimension of diversity, but it may mean it is more liely to be accurate.
Other concepts mentioned:
Reading Activism - deliberately choosing to read (and promote the reading of) books with a specific social purpose, e.g. ensuring your reading covers the full range of diversity.
Incidental Diversity - where a book includes diverse charactaers but that diversity is incidentla to the main plot, even though they influence the story, it is not the whole, or even main point of it.
