The elevation of Black Girls' hair: An analysis of visual representations in Children's picturebooks.

This article critically examines representations of Black girls' hair in 55 picturebooks published between 2010 and 2020, using Black girlhood and Critical Multimodal Literacy frameworks to analyze the initial visual introductions of Black girl protagonists. The study finds that Black girls' hair is consistently elevated in these texts through its salience, physical portrayal, and cultural importance, even when hair is not the central theme, highlighting hair as a key marker of identity and resistance against historical and ongoing discrimination. The authors emphasize the role of picturebooks as school-sanctioned materials that can offer affirming "mirrors" and "windows" for Black girls, advocating for their inclusion in curricula to counteract biases and support positive identity development. The article also calls for updates to educational standards to include more diverse and representative literature and encourages further multimodal research on Black girlhood that centers the voices and experiences of Black girls themselves.