An experimental study of the effects of a program of oral reading of children's literature about Negroes on the self-concept of Negro fourth grade children

The self-concepts of Negro fourth grade students in an elementary school in Austin, Texas were studied to ascer-tain the effect of 36 sessions, 30 minutes each, of oral reading of literature containing Negro characters, both historical and fictional. The Piers-Harris Self Concept Test, an inventory requiring responses of yes or no to 80 statements about one's self; the Children's Self-Social Constructs Test, a non-verbal measure of self-social items of horizontal esteem, vertical esteem, complexity, individuation, and identification with mother, father, teacher, friends; and self-drawings in color by the students were used. A pretest and posttest were administered. An experimental group exposed to literature with Negro characters, a placebo control group exposed to literature without Negro characters, and a control group exposed to no oral reading of literature were the subjects for this study. There were 23 pupils in each group. These groups approached equality in terms of race, sex, age, and I.Q. Analysis of the data obtained from the Piers-Harris posttest scores revealed a lower self-concept of the experimental group at the end of the experi-mental period. However, scores of the same subjects were significantly higher on the posttest scores of the Children's Self-Social Constructs Test on the items of vertical esteem, horizontal esteem, and identification with mother and friends. Post-test scores of all the groups revealed less complexity, individuation, and identity with teacher at the end of the experimental period and all groups revealed greater identi-fication with father. Children in the experimental group used brown less frequently as their skin color in self-drawings at the end of the experimental period than in their first self-drawings.