Stereotypes of the Native American in fiction books in elementary school libraries

This study proposed to investigate the kinds of Native American materials which were found in elementary school library media centers in Iowa Education Agency Seven (AEA 7). A questionnaire was prepared with seventeen recommended titles and fifteen presently criticized titles on which media specialists in AEA 7 were to indicate availability in their media centers. The hypothesis to be tested was: Given a list of books containing both reconnnended and presently criticized titles, 75 percent of school library specialists in AEA 7 will indicate that there are more recommended titles than presently criticized titles on Native Americans in their fiction collections. The hypothesis was accepted on the basis of the analysis of data. Twenty (90.9 percent) of the twenty-two media specialists in the sample population had more recommended books than presently criticized ones. Altogether, the media specialists indicated holding a total of 115 copies of books on the listof 32 .Of these, ninety-four (81. 7 percent) were positively reviewed while twenty-one (18.3 percent) were presently criticized