{"id":137,"date":"2025-09-22T14:07:53","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T14:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flourishingtogether.bc.edu\/?page_id=137"},"modified":"2025-10-06T00:44:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T00:44:54","slug":"educational-resource-center-4","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/flourishingtogether.bc.edu\/index.php\/educational-resource-center-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Representation with Meaning: Curricular Windows, Mirrors, and Doors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cultivating Belonging with Curriculum Resources\/ 3 of 5<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If surface-level representation can amount to tokenism, and curriculum has the power to impact students\u2019 senses of self and belonging, what is the solution? Thirty-five years ago, Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop offered a framework for conceptualizing the value of meaningful diversity in children\u2019s literature: mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors (1). Children\u2019s literature scholars, librarians, and classroom teachers have long used this framework to describe the ways in which an authentically and meaningfully diverse array of classroom and library materials can influence students\u2019 experiences of the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mirrors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For students whose racial, cultural, language, gender, sexual, or disability identities are largely absent from the mainstream K-12 curriculum, meaningfully representative curricular materials serve as mirrors<\/em>. As a mirror, these materials reflect the students\u2019 identities, values, and communities for them to see. By incorporating curricular mirrors throughout the curriculum and across content areas, schools reinforce that understanding the world from diverse points of view is legitimate school knowledge, and demonstrate to students who have historically been marginalized from the curriculum that they belong within the school community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Windows<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Bishop describes windows<\/em> in literature as an opportunity to view a reality different from our own in a way we otherwise could not. In curricular materials, windows may offer students insight into the many facets of other people\u2019s lives, particularly those that go beyond the holidays and historical figures of another culture. For students who are used to seeing themselves represented in official school knowledge and materials, windows serve the important role of teaching students that others\u2019 ways of knowing, being, and communicating not only exist, but are valuable and valid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When the materials we provide students are so immersive as to be transportive, our curriculum may function as what Bishop terms a sliding glass door<\/em>. By walking through such a door, students enter a new world, cultivating a deeper understanding of another perspective and building empathy for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWhen there are enough books available that can act as both mirrors and windows for all our children, they will see that we can celebrate both our differences and our similarities, because together they are what make us all human.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

– Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, 1990 (1)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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