Teaching as Curriculum Curation: Centering Mirrors and Windows in an Inclusive Bookshelf Project

From increasing calls for multicultural and inclusive books to media stories about books being banned in elementary schools, curriculum debates have become increasingly contentious. These debates illuminate key questions in curriculum studies: What is the knowledge of most worth? And who decides? In this article, I utilize a curriculum studies in education framework to engage and extend the literature supporting multicultural and inclusive children’s literature and critical literacy while emphasizing the role of teachers-as-curators. After analyzing the results of a year-long project in which preservice teachers (PSTs) curated collections of multicultural books representing a mirrors and windows approach to text selection, I reflect upon how teacher educators can support preservice teachers in developing the skills to make deliberate curricular choices.