Multicultural Texts and Collection Development: Are School Librarians Supporting their Latino Students?

Recently there has been a steady increase in the number of non-white students, especially Latino students in southeast school systems. This study determines whether this population is being successfully supported in their school library by asking two questions: (1) Are culturally relevant resources that are based on award winning nominations available to the Latino population within each school library? (2) What facilitators and barriers exist for the School Librarians supporting this population? This study analyzed the prevalence of Latino book award titles in three southeast school libraries, and conducted interviews with their school librarians. Data collected was based on a list of book titles that have received one of the three awards: the Pura Belpré, Americas, or Tomás Rivera award. Then, a content analysis was conducted from the responses of three phone interviews, which revealed the facilitators and barriers they encountered to support this population.Master of Science in Library Scienc