The relationship between the race of characters in a literary selection and the literary responses of Negro and white adolescent readers

This study was undertaken to identify differences in the literary responses of adolescents related to race-of-characters (white, Negro, and neutral) in 3 versions of a short story. Versions and responses were, respectively, the independent and dependent variables; control variables were subject-race, residence prestige, and reading achievement. Each of 281 subjects (ninth- and eleventh-grade) read one story version and then--on an adapted semantic differential instrument--rated 9 elements from the story (characters, a literary symbol, his mood while reading, and the full story) against a series of bi-polar adjective scales.