The “paucity” of UK children’s books featuring an ethnically diverse lineup of characters is set to be laid bare by two Arts Council England-backed studies into representation in children’s literature.

The issue of ethnic representation has long been a subject of research in the US, where the University of Wisconsin-Madison has charted the relatively minuscule proportion of children’s books by and about people of colour for decades: in 2016, it found that of 3,400 US children’s books, just 287 were about Africans or African Americans, 240 were about Asians, 169 about Latinos and 55 about Native Americans.

While experts in the UK have pointed to a similarly “huge problem” for some time, until now the relevant statistics have not been available to back up the widely held view that, as ACE director for literature Sarah Crown put it on Wednesday, there is a “paucity of high-quality books for children and young adults by and about people from all walks of life”.

Now the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) is set to chart for the first time the extent and quality of ethnic representation among characters in UK children’s books, thanks to new funding from the ACE, while BookTrust is due to evaluate the number of children’s books created by authors and illustrators of colour. CLPE will publish its study, Reflecting Realities, in July, covering titles published in 2017, while BookTrust will report in September, looking back across recent years. Both intend the pieces of research to become annual events.

“Under-representation, and a lack of quality of representation, has been an issue for a very long time,” said Farrah Serroukh, who is directing the CLPE project. Serroukh said that while there is “a creeping increase of representation evident, that is not necessarily indicative of quality”, with publishers and authors needing to reflect on whether characters reinforce stereotypes, and are well-developed.

“It’s not just a case of creating ethnic minority characters, it’s a case of what proportion they represent, and what is the quality of that representation,” she said.

CLPE has put out a call to publishers asking them to submit books aimed at children aged between three and 11 and published in 2017. “There is a strong moral, ethical and financial case for wider representation in children’s books,” it writes, calling on publishers to help it ensure that children’s literature “meaningfully reflects the realities of its readership”. Serroukh said she hopes to receive thousands of submissions.

“We are not envisioning that [ethnic representation] is going to be particularly high,” she said. “All of us have a sense that it is not quite where it needs to be.”

We must invest our energies into normalising the breadth of realities that exist within our classrooms and society Farrah Serroukh

After revealing general figures about representation in July, CLPE will then invite individual publishers in to consult with its experts on specific findings. “Otherwise we’re just constantly going over the same ground,” said Serroukh. “We would hope this would inform their editorial processes and ultimately lead to better quality books being produced.”

Serroukh said she hoped the research would also “lead to a more nuanced conversation about the value and impact of reflecting realities”.

“We must invest our energies into normalising and making mainstream the breadth and range of realities that exist within our classrooms and society, and ensure that this translates to the pages of our books,” she said. “Books provide a gateway to worlds beyond the reality of this one for children, and also allow them to mirror their own reality. That allows us to validate who we are, and raises our sense of self.

Children then sense that not only do they have the right to see themselves in books, but that they also have the right to occupy the literary space. They feel eligible to contribute to that space. Authors of colour talk about how they never saw themselves in books growing up – that books weren’t for them as readers, but also that they weren’t for them in terms of the ability to write.”

High-school students browsing books in a library. Photograph: Alamy

BookTrust director of children’s books Jill Coleman was clear that “representation in children’s books is important for all children”. “A lack of diversity impacts on how young readers see themselves and the world around them, on their motivation to read, and on their aspirations to become the writers and illustrators of the future. We hope this research will give us an accurate picture of the present situation, help us to support and encourage a diverse range of talent and, ultimately, to encourage more children to develop a lifelong love of reading,” she said.

Crown pointed to recent reports, including the Arts Council’s own, which she said have “shone a spotlight on the publishing sector’s alarming lack of diversity, in terms of staffing, artistic talent and output”. An ACE report published in December found that “over the past 15 years or so the position of BAME writers within British writing and publishing, never robust, has in fact gone backwards”. “Low pay, insider networks, unpaid internships, a perception that the industry caters to ‘white’ tastes and that it is not looking for writers and staff from a BAME background, all contribute,” said the report.

Crown said that the CLPE research would “provide much-needed evidence that may help shape the decisions made by those working in the publishing industry and the subsidised sector that supports it”.

Serroukh at the CLPE, a charity which works to support the teaching of literacy in primary schools, said that there was currently “a momentum across the industry calling for better representation”. “We want to contribute to that conversation and move it on,” she said. “It’s great that the industry has been reflecting on this, but that’s only effective if it ultimately leads to change. [The report] will help keep it in the forefront of our psyches, and will be a measure to detail how we’re moving forwards.”