Why Representation Matters
“Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us” (Bishop, 1990, para. 1)
Books as Windows: Empathy and Social Understanding
“Books can also be windows into worlds both imaginary and real, providing readers with views into lives that are different from theirs” (Enriquez, 2021, p. 105).
Books act as windows - offering views into lives, cultures, relationships, and experiences that differ from those children know first-hand. Through these windows, children are invited to notice both similarities and differences, and to begin developing curiosity, compassion, and critical awareness about the wider social world.
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Diverse books do more than introduce new characters; they situate children within a complex society with many different worldviews. Cahill et al. (2021) explain, “diverse books reflect the reality of living in the twenty-first century, with people from various ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds and with various disabilities, gender identities, and [2S]LGBTQIA orientations living and working together” (p. 270). When book collections reflect this reality, children encounter a broader range of families, communities, and ways of living - expanding what they understand as possible and normal.
Windows are particularly important for children from dominant groups, whose everyday experiences and identities are already widely reflected in media and schooling as they assist children in understanding and appreciating others’ cultures (Cahill et al., 2021). When children from predominantly represented populations read only about people like themselves, they “can
“Children from dominant social groups have always found their mirrors in books, but they, too, have suffered from the lack of availability of books about others. They need the books as windows onto reality, not just on imaginary worlds”
(Bishop, 1990, para. 5).
adopt the false belief that their own backgrounds, cultures, and experiences are more important than those of others” (p. 271). In this way, a lack of windows can unintentionally reinforce existing power hierarchies of whose lives matter most (Bishop, 1990).
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When educators intentionally choose books that open wide, clear windows - rather than tiny or distorted ones (Enriquez, 2021) - they create early opportunities for children to practice seeing and valuing the full diversity of human experience.