The elementary school library: Tensions between access and censorship

Abstract

Children’s news media offers access points for students to learn about the complex and evolving world around them, and school libraries are spaces where students develop the skills and knowledge necessary to interact with media. Yet despite the potential of children’s news media, school libraries often become regulatory spaces where children are directed away from texts (both digital and printed) that are deemed inappropriate due to sophisticated content (Heins, 2007) or in some cases, are encouraged to read on their “level” (Kontovourki, 2012). This constructs children as vulnerable and in need of protection (Robinson, 2013). Instead, I seek to position the focal children as active, critical agents at the center of their own lives. In this article, I analyze conceptions of childhood innocence (James and Prout, 1997), arguing that both childhood and literacy are fluid and permeable constructions. I ask: What are the ways in which texts and literacy practices are censored in one elementary school library? To investigate this, I followed one school librarian, Deborah, and three first-grade students in their school library at City Partnership School as they navigated texts, learned about the world around them through multimedia platforms, and constructed their own identities as readers in a system with clear expectations for what a “readerly” identity looks like.

Purpose: Why the library?

School libraries originated as democratic spaces of access to information (Dressman, 1998), where students could pursue their own inquiries. Beginning as reading rooms, school libraries have since evolved to integrate digital texts, news media, and multimodal learning in efforts to widen opportunities for student exploration and exposure to diverse thought. Wohlwend (2013) contends that “modern childhoods are steeped in digital media” (50), where adults carefully design both printed texts and digital news media for children. Each of these texts has relevance to a young child’s life. News media is not simply for entertainment but is a critical access point as young students come to understand the complex world around them.

Despite the demonstrated importance of news media, school libraries often become regulatory spaces where children are directed away from texts (both digital and printed) that are deemed inappropriate due to sophisticated content (Heins, 2007) or in some cases, are encouraged to read on their “level” (Kontovourki, 2012). This dichotomizes children from adults, construcing them as vulnerable and in need of protection (Robinson, 2013). Despite this, students remain active producers of knowledge. Harvard Graduate School of Education’s magazine (Zachary, 2018) reported that the current political climate is seeing the largest surge in student activism since the 1960s, with many of these movements relying on social media. This highlights an inherent tension between a frightening world, and the need for students to engage critically in our contemporary context of learning (Jacobs Israel, 2014).

As well-intentioned as instances of regulation might be, they are problematic. Content management implicitly assumes that young children should be sheltered from critical conversations about the world around them. In this article, I argue that a child is not simply a premature human, waiting to develop adult thought (James and Prout, 1997); rather, a child’s social life is significant and merits more in-depth study. Attempts to shelter students often take the form of overly managing digital content (e.g. providing a short list of teacher-selected databases), or limiting news consumption to filtered selections. Therefore, young children become relegated to a position of marginalization despite their need and desire to understand an increasingly complex society. This article follows several first-grade students in their school library at City Partnership School as they navigate texts, learn about the world around them through multimedia platforms, and construct their own identities as readers in a system with clear expectations for what a “readerly” identity looks like. As James and Prout (1997) assert, in the past “little attention was paid to childhood as a phenomenon in itself or to children as active participants in their own rearing process” (17). I seek to position children as active, critical agents at the center of their own lives.

To analyze the text selections and literate practices of these first graders, I ask: What are the ways in which texts and literacy practices are censored in one elementary school library? I operationalize the term censorship to include any of the ways students are given parameters in what they can read, whether by the content of the texts themselves, or the behaviors that are tied to privileged notions of reading. Findings of this study include how three first-grade students were censored by reading level, content, and literacy practices in efforts to guide them away from “inappropriate” content and toward high-quality literature.

Historical context of school libraries

Despite being viewed as a cultural pillar in many American communities, school libraries have had a varied and contentious history, most recently in incorporating popular culture, news media, and digital literacy. As Dressman (1997) points out, school libraries largely arose for the purpose of acculturating new immigrant children to canonical literature in settlement houses. Although school libraries have shifted away from this conception, strong notions about what counts as quality literature —and knowledge—for children remain. As Sipe (1996) has argued, there are often implicit, unspoken criteria used when determining what constitutes a “classic” text. These assumptions about classic or quality literature subsequently influence what texts end up on library shelves, in schools, and ultimately in the hands of children. Over time, however, conceptions and beliefs about school libraries have evolved. In fact, a 1918 National Education Association report argued for the need for school libraries to house a diverse set of print and, increasingly, digital materials, open to student exploration (Midland, 2008). Circa 1925, advocates for multimodal texts and literacies began shaping school library policy. While these shifts to highlight digital texts did not yet include children’s news, as libraries continued to evolve into information hubs, the integration of current events became a paramount consideration.

Alongside these progressing ideas of what counts as a text were parallel shifts in the library structure and organization. For example, 1925 saw the influx of the first standards for school libraries (Michie and Holton, 2005), helping to shape what sorts of literacy practices were acceptable, encouraged, and privileged in the school library institution. From the original specifications, the standards evolved to become more research intensive following the launch of Sputnik, and then to incorporate media in both 1969 and 1975, with an even greater emphasis on technology in 1988 (Rumberger, 2018). Most recently, school libraries have been called to take on a school media center role, integrating traditional and digital texts. As the collection of texts has widened over time, so has the need to support students in navigating the vast and diverse collections. These shifts also call on school librarians to take a more central role in mediating children’s engagement with news media as an access point to understanding their sociopolitical contexts.

Decisions about how to structure a library, what texts to include in the collection, and how much to guide student selections are political decisions that do not operate in isolation, but are intimately connected to larger ideologies about educating young children. Attempts to censor what children consume not only positions them as passive consumers (Freire’s (1970) “banking” model of education), but restricts the agency of children to embody their overlapping childhoods (Prout, 2011) as they explore different bodies of knowledge. As libraries have evolved, tensions have remained about what students should be reading, and what literacy practices they should be taking up in these public spaces.

Theoretical framework: Constructing childhood and literacy

Despite attempts to limit young children’s access to “sensitive” issues, I have drawn on critical literacy scholars (Comber et al., 2001; Freire, 1970; Street, 2005) to argue that even our most emergent readers can (and do) critique their world, regardless of whether or not they are conventionally reading. Furthermore, I discuss conceptions of childhood innocence (James and Prout, 1997), arguing that both childhood and literacy are fluid and permeable constructions.

Comber et al. (2001) found that primary students are highly capable of discussing the inequities in their neighborhoods and can advocate for better conditions when given the support to do so. In their writing project, children recognized quite fully the injustices in their neighborhoods, and were well-aware of systemic poverty. Students ultimately used literacy practices in ways that were deeply meaningful to their own lives: they used their writing to convey their thoughts about the surrounding world. This article takes up tenets of critical literacy to posit that young children can—and should—read both the word and the world. Freire (1970), considered to be the pioneer of critical literacy, explains that “reading the world always precedes reading the word, and reading the word implies continually reading the world” (10), in that students are learning about their social, cultural, and political worlds as they simultaneously engage with literacy. Taking up critical literacy perspectives is inherently political and value-laden. Rather than positioning literacy as something that develops in an autonomous, linear trajectory (Street, 2005), critical literacy argues that all literacy practices develop in culturally and socially specific ways. Comber et al. (2001) enacted this perspective by drawing out the knowledge and experiences that the students brought to their community project.

However, critical literacy is one paradigm among more traditional models of literacy instruction: teaching all students a prescribed set of skills in a sequential order. If traditional literacy instruction occurs in classrooms, which might fall under Freire’s banking (1970) model of knowledge as transmitted from teacher to student, it would be complemented by a library program that integrated critical perspectives. Unfortunately, school libraries have not been widely conceptualized in this way, and have missed an opportunity to offer a space for broad and nuanced framings of literacy. In a position paper, drawing on Freire’s (1970) critical theory—and in this case, critical literacy pedagogy—Elmborg (2006) argues,

perhaps not accidentally, Freire equates the common library functions of receiving, filing, collecting, and cataloging with the banking concept. In doing so, he poses important challenges to librarians. What is the role of the library in the Freireian vision of critical literacy? (193).

Here, Elmborg (2006) challenges libraries to alter this more administrative way of operating and, instead, align themselves with the democratic principles (Sensenig, 2010) on which libraries were founded. When libraries protect authoritative knowledge—as it did at City Partnership School—and do not offer students the opportunity to exercise their own agency and meaning making, students are potentially limited, particularly those from historically marginalized groups.

News media for students functions along similar lines, where competing notions about preserving childhood innocence (James and Prout, 1997), and the need for children to understand the world around them, simultaneously compete (Jacobs Israel, 2014). To address this, a market for news curated specifically for children has emerged within the past decade, with organizations such as ReadWorks (2019) and Newsela (2019) adapting and writing current events content for children across multiple reading levels. While based in the United States, ReadWorks (2019) serves an international audience and Newsela (2019) addresses global issues. Designed to support students in developing reading comprehension and academic vocabulary, these curated platforms decide what content is appropriate—or valuable—at specific grade levels and/or reading levels. Parents are often viewed as the “first line of defense” in protecting children from inappropriate media consumption (Vandewater et al., 2005), with schools following. This constructs the child as in need of protection, dichotomized from a fully realized adult (Robinson, 2013). In the review of the literature, Vandewater et al. (2005) found that as children got older, more rules for television use were imposed, specifically around content. Therefore, childhood is often not viewed as a social construction but as a linear trajectory; this creates a bounded notion, whereas a perspective of children as agents is a permeable, evolving conception. With that, I recognize that children are not autonomous beings, but are shaped by the multiple environments and communities (Prout, 2011) that they traverse across their daily lives.

Critical literacy attempts to interrogate the power hierarchies that are present and reproduced through all texts and media, first by deconstructing the text to expose this power, and then by reconstructing text toward social justice ends. To critique their world and the power hierarchies that exist within it, however, children need to be exposed to and not sheltered from current events, controversial topics, and relevant conversations with the understanding that they will form their own opinions when given the opportunities and tools to do so. It is the responsibility of educators to support students in understanding how to evaluate sources of information and arrive at their own conclusions given what they learn, rather than shielding them from information. In practice, this is not always the case.

Methodology, data sources, and approaches to analysis

This article highlights data from a larger study that took place from August 2016–February 2017. City Partnership School, a non-selective lottery school, is located in a historically African-American neighborhood in the northeast of the United States. During this study, students received library instruction twice per week, which was characterized by its “browsing” sessions, where students could select and borrow any books that they wanted. While other libraries integrate digital texts, City Partnership did not, and library time was truly centered on physical books spanning multiple genres. There were several computers for shared use in the library, but I did not observe the first-grade students accessing these computers during their library instruction. While there was not a formal library curriculum, the school librarian consulted the city library standards when planning sessions.

Participants in the study

Highlighted in this study is one school librarian, Deborah, and three first-grade students who attend City Partnership School. All names and places presented in this study are pseudonyms. Deborah, the librarian at City Partnership School, trained as a teacher before becoming a regular substitute at the school, taking over a long-term position as the librarian as this study began. Deborah is an African-American woman of Caribbean descent, who spoke freely of her strong faith. Deborah felt that part of her responsibility as an educator was to support students in their character development, which meant guiding their book choices away from content that might be indecent or dark (Heins, 2007). With statements to me as the researcher, such as, “I am concerned about our children. I’m concerned. Like I said, I speak to them a lot from what I know,” she implied that she felt that education has a strong moral component, which was thus a part of her position as the school librarian.

Also highlighted in this article are three first-grade focal students of varying backgrounds. To select my focal students, I asked two first-grade teachers to recommend several students who would be comfortable speaking with me over the course of several months, and whom were diverse in ability, gender, language practices, and racial background. First is Carla, a white, middle-class, female first-grade student who is characterized by her teachers as a strong and engaged reader. Carla professed to love reading, and embodied the “good girl” (Miller, 2005) reader, as she conformed to the behaviors and attitudes expected of her within the school setting and I almost never observed her receiving redirection. James, Carla’s classmate, is a male student of African heritage, whose parents speak both English and French. An advanced reader, James loved books by author Mo Willems, particularly the Knuffle Bunny series, and consistently selected these books during his browsing sessions. In fact, in November of 2016, James told me that he loved to spend time reading Mo Willems books during his library sessions, as he was expected to read “on his level” (a higher level than Mo Willems) while in the classroom. A final first-grade student, Mark, is highlighted here. Mark is of Latino descent, and speaks both English and Spanish in his home. Mark was described to me as a low reader by his teachers, and yet, despite that, Mark loved to visit the library. I often observed him moving around the room, looking at various types of books. While he loved reading, Mark seemed to be highly conscious of his status as a reader who struggled.

Data collection and analysis

This study followed a case study design (Dyson and Genishi, 2005), studying one complex phenomena bound by both time and space. Ethnographic data, such as observations and interviews, comprised the majority of the data for this study. As a participant-observer, I spent each first-grade library session (which lasted 45-minutes) watching and listening (Erickson, 1977). Extensive description with fieldnotes comprised a significant amount of my data. As Emerson et al. (2011) argue, fieldnotes are one person’s interpretation of an event, and I did not attempt to separate my own researcher identity from the data that I collected during this study. I began with open coding (Dyson and Genishi, 2005) in efforts to begin categorizing and analyzing my data.

With my focal students, I conducted four semi-structured interviews with students, in efforts to uncover their own text preferences, attitudes, and experiences. Taking up Spradley’s (1979) framework, I asked both broad and narrow questions. After transcribing interviews verbatim, I coded the transcripts for situated meanings of words and phrases, as well as for the larger social practices (Gee, 2005) in which these situated meanings were located. For example, language around reading levels and appropriate content consumption were intimately situated within the broader literacy practice of text selection, and in fact were driving forces of the text selection at City Partnership School. To augment the observations and interviews, I took my own photographs of the space and collected samples of documents and artifacts that were already present (Ghiso, 2015). As Schmidt (2017) argues, piecing apart artifacts helps to uncover tensions in the data—such as notions of censorship and the preservation of childhood innocence juxtaposed with the fluid nature of libraries—and this lens helped me think through my data in new ways. In this article, I foreground a lens that helped me identify instances of censorship, while other configurations of my data illuminate notions of playful literacies.

Findings

Schools are complex institutions, and literacy instruction is no exception. The findings from this study demonstrate that, at times, students were censored—or censored themselves—in varying ways. First, students self-censored what they could read in the library, often due to their reading level or perceived ability. Students also received direction on what was “appropriate” or not for them to select in the library. Finally, certain literacy practices were privileged, either implicitly or explicitly.

Censorship based on level

At City Partnership School, like many other schools across the United States, elementary students are directed to read books that are on their “just right” or independent reading level (Fountas and Pinnell, 2006), as determined by reading assessments. School libraries, however, are typically free from visible levels, instead organized both by genre, as well as the Dewey Decimal System. Along with the library shelves, bins were spread around for the young readers in efforts to make popular texts accessible. Many of the bins were organized by author (Mo Willems was a particular favorite), as well as by theme (superheroes or fairy tales, for example).

Despite the library being free from physical levels, however, even the youngest students had very formed notions of what it meant to be a successful reader, and these notions were often informed by what text level they were assigned. Statements by Mark such as “I can read this, it’s a first-grade book!” in response to selecting Syd the Dinosaur on 25 January 2017 illustrated the power of reading levels to his identity as a reader, particularly as a reader who was markedly aware of his struggles. Another time, however, Mark selected a book called Rainforest Race. Upon asking if he wanted to read it to me, Mark replied: “I’m a level D, and this is an E” on 8 February 2017. A week later, Mark stated, “I’m not a level A, I’m a level C” and in doing so, he demonstrated a fixation on his own level, one that heavily influenced his text selection while in the library. While in this example Mark was not censored by anyone else, he took up the language around reading levels and used it to actively guide his decisions. Mark’s statements in these comments revealed the more deleterious effects of reading levels, which can subsequently impose self-censoring on our youngest readers.

Discourses of reading levels, assessment, and what counts as being a good reader circulate powerfully throughout school institutions. Therefore, even if a school library does not use reading levels as a part of their organization scheme, both students and adults understand these discourses and take part in regulating themselves (and one another) as readers—issues of censorship are not always direct. Often, discourses of censorship circulate more implicitly through the language of school expectations, norms, and practices. Over time, expectations around reading levels permeate even non-classroom spaces and have the potential to influence the decisions that both librarians and students make.

Censorship based on content

Findings in this study demonstrate that the school library—despite democratic principles—often became a space where children had limited access to both reading content and literacy practices that were not viewed as desirable. Because the library was not leveled, thereby affording greater text selection, the school librarian evaluated the quality of the content. For example, on 20 January 2017, Deborah discussed the notion of appropriate books with the first graders, pointing out that she had noticed some students selecting books that were out of their realm—and thus, books that she deemed inappropriate. As she pointed out, “even though a book is on your level it might not be appropriate,” drawing a distinction between the level of text difficulty and content, as in students may be able to decode a text that would expose them to sophisticated topics or difficult knowledge. Referring to RL Stine books, she argued, “If you see violence that much, you’re going to grow up violent. Be careful what you put in your mind! I like beauty of life, but those kinds of books aren’t. They’re the dark side of life!” Her language of “be careful what you put in your mind” positioned young students as highly impressionable, where the selection they made in what to read was weighted with political and social power.

This regulation of content is not unlike broader censorship issues in the field of librarianship. For decades, there have been public attempts to challenge and ban books annually (Doyle, 2016), which represents a desire to control information that might be perceived as difficult for children. In reality, childhood is a social construction that is not monolithic, but is experienced in various ways across spaces, cultures, and circumstances (Robinson, 2008). What is difficult for one child, therefore, might be reflective of another’s experiences. This adult mediation of knowledge (James and Prout, 1997) does not promote a culture of tolerance and curiosity, but rather narrows who and what is considered acceptable.

A desire to preserve childhood innocence, while at times well-intentioned, limits opportunities for students to develop an awareness of their global community. In schools, this can often be seen in the way that digital citizenship and media safety is taught. As Gleason and von Gillern (2018) found, over 75% of public schools in the United States used Common Sense Media, a non-profit organization, to teach digital citizenship to their students. One goal of digital citizenship education is to support the development of engaged, active young citizens that participate in the advancement of their own communities. Where digital citizenship proposes a model that is student-centered and emphasizes participation, often digital citizenship can be construed to focus on privacy and security alone. An opportunity to teach concepts such as sharing intellectual property through news media sources is therefore missed due to an overemphasis on safety.

In overemphasizing safety, advanced readers like James may therefore encounter greater censoring of content, as the books at their level include more sophisticated ideas and experiences than an identified first-grade-level book. In censoring texts by drawing parameters around appropriateness, advanced readers may not access challenging reading material. In advising, “So don’t go there [RL Stine books]. Not for you! You’re first grade! Magic Tree House, Flat Stanley, those are good,” Deborah guided students to select what she deemed to be “high-quality” and safe content. In doing so, Deborah mediated student knowledge of the world (Prout, 2011). A missed opportunity in this incident was to encourage students to engage intelligently—to be agents of change, rather than consumers of news media.

Furthermore, on 1 February 2017, Deborah stated, “Everyone just takes the joke books. Nobody take them today. Let’s see by March if you can read all the other ones . . . along the shelves. You need to read three or more. Take out, bring it back.” With this language, Deborah isolated the joke books, not including them in what she considered to be quality literature for children. This affected James, who had no choice but to make a different selection based on these parameters. After this observation, I asked James about the incident where students were told they could not read the joke books. He responded, “I wanted to read the Valentine’s Day joke books yesterday.” When I probed to ask him what he thought about that, he responded, “I thought that . . . that I would choose another book.” For James, who wanted to read the Valentine’s Day themed book, the power of choice was removed. By censoring the content, James was once again limited in the library—a place in the school that theoretically is not bound by ability levels and limited choice.

Censorship—directing student selection of texts—and open choice are in many ways positioned at odds in this context. This dichotomy, in efforts to construct the library as a place to preserve childhood innocence (Robinson, 2008), can inevitably constrain many readers, but particularly those who read above benchmark. This produces a space of regulation, where particular information is privileged over others. By taking a view of literacy as something that develops in an autonomous, objective, and linear manner (Street, 2005), some ways of “being a reader” are marginalized. As particular reader identities are narrowed, so are notions of childhood.

Censorship based on practices and behaviors

While the evaluation of content can come in a top-down manner, the production and reproduction of behaviors also merits examination. Notions of “schooled literacies” (Cook-Gumperz, 1986) are long ingrained in both teachers and students, which define what it means to be a successful reader. Schooled literacies were indeed present within City Partnership’s school library, as expectations for “reading” were made clear and reinforced through visuals, language, and redirection. For example, during a read-aloud on 9 December 2018, Deborah redirected students who were not displaying the desired behaviors. After the read-aloud, Deborah announced to the students that they had run out of time to browse because they were talking too much during the read-aloud, stating that “When kids act out, we waste time. I keep telling you that.” In this instance, the library browsing sessions became a token, one that was quickly taken away if students did not conform to the expected behaviors. Despite the purpose of the library being to read, it became mediated and censored by notions of what it meant to be a “successful” reader, which then limited the amount of free reading that students were allowed to engage in.

Of course, some literacy behaviors were widely accepted in the library. Students were often praised for sitting still, listening, and raising their hands. For example, during one read-aloud session on 15 December 2016, Deborah noted that the students were attending clearly. She commended them with, “You’re all listening to me. Look at me. I really congratulate you all” in efforts to reinforce the desired “readerly” behaviors. These “schooled” (Cook-Gumperz, 1986) expectations then narrowed the types of engagement (such as dramatization of stories) that students participated in. If students interpreted a text in complex ways, and had alternative ways of making meaning, they may not have been able to demonstrate this in the library. In other words, an “ideal” reader—and child—was constructed, with clear parameters on what that looked like in practice.

These schooled expectations were made very clear to students. During an interview, I asked Carla to draw a picture of herself reading, and to then caption the image. Carla drew herself sitting in a chair with her eyes on a book, and then wrote, “I’m reading a book, and I’m very focused . . . I’m not getting distracted.” This language and image—a student reading independently and in a focused manner—aligns with traditional notions of what it means to be a successful reader in a school setting.

While Carla did often conform to these “schooled literacies” (Cook-Gumperz, 1986), I also observed her taking up playful behaviors, though she did so carefully. Curious about this, I asked Carla whether she ever played with books, to which she responded: “Sometimes, so like, I don’t throw them around because that wouldn’t be respectful. I just like, try to be funny with them. Like, ‘hello, I’m a monster!’ [motions book opening like a mouth].” While taking up playful tendencies, Carla did so in a judicious way, so that her behaviors were not managed or censored. Therefore, she expertly retained her persona as a “good girl” (Miller, 2005).

Other students found that their behaviors were censored more overtly. James, as mentioned previously, selected Mo Willems books week after week. On 1 February 2017, James moved around the library, asking peers for the Mo Willems book that they were reading once he had finished the one he initially chose. James was redirected by Deborah, who asked him to take out a book and sit down, positioning him as wandering around the library aimlessly. It was the perception of James’s literacy practices, then, that drove whether he was seen as successful, intersecting with his position as an African-American male student. These instances demonstrate the issues of equity that are inherent and yet often not discussed in the management of behaviors, as African-American male students are statistically redirected and disciplined at higher rates than others (Ladson-Billings, 2004). Like the censoring of the texts, students also encounter instances where their raced, classed, and gendered bodies, movement, and literacy practices are managed according to schooled norms (Rogers and Mosley, 2006). These instances subsequently contribute to narrowing options for how students are permitted to engage in literacy and with texts, content, and ideas. Although James was one of the most advanced readers in his class, he was in many ways one of the most limited.

Discussion

Democratic principles like access and choice (New York City Library System, n.d.) are intended to encourage students to think critically and draw their own conclusions in an era of post-truth. Post-truth refers to a political climate where emotion trumps scientific reasoning when influencing public opinion and, at times, policy (Peters, Srider and Besley, 2017). In fact, post-truth was Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year in 2016, demonstrating growing concerns of the concept. Post-truth is not only evident in politics, but has recentered the need for education to be rooted in critical thinking. Therefore, access to libraries is more essential than ever, and yet despite this, many libraries have faced issues surrounding censorship. These discussions of “appropriateness” for children mirror larger trends facing public and community libraries. And Tango Makes Three (Richardson and Parnell, 2005), a book that features two male penguins raising a baby penguin, has been consistently on the list of attempted banned books for years, cited as a book that promotes homosexuality. This censorship teaches that particular family structures are normal while making other ways of being a family invisible. Therefore, censorship can be seen as a “political strategy for maintaining the hegemony of the nuclear family” (Robinson, 2008: 114) at the expense of inclusion.

In regulating children’s access to information, adults deny children the opportunity to explore multiple ways of being in the world and to develop understanding of difference. This reinforces a hierarchical relationship between the knowledgeable adult and the child as the passive recipient of “safe” information. The school library can be viewed as a microcosm of the censorship that occurs for young children in response to evolving social and political worlds in larger public libraries. Interestingly, the public library also takes up other roles that are juxtaposed with notions of traditional literature and literacies. For example, the public library in some areas has become more of a cultural institution (exhibits, galleries, activist pieces) that any individual can access regardless of age. In 2013, the New York Public Library organized an exhibit around banned books for children. On a larger scale, the American Library Association each year compiles a list of the most requested books to be banned from the library system.

Within these conceptions, the two manifestations of the library diverge. It is both a space that can limit information, and simultaneously has the capacity to offer the freedom of self-expression and access to global information. It is precisely this tension that positions the library as a space of possibility despite being rife with contradictions.

Implications for policy, practice, and research

Whether the library is housed within one elementary school, or intended to serve a broader public, it should be constructed in a way that allows students to access a variety of texts. After all, providing students with access to literature, news media, and multimodal texts—and the space to engage with these diverse texts to think through complex issues—is the purpose of a library institution. While a limitation of this study is that it did not examine student engagement with news media texts, future inquiries might take this up more explicitly. For example, exploring access to news media for children could highlight what information is both silenced and privileged in library spaces. In addition, widening the scope of the study to look across multiple contexts might illuminate the ways in which news media is available to children. Paramount in these efforts is ensuring that students can explore a variety of literacy practices, modes, and topics without incessant limits.

Digital citizenship is one way to ensure that students engage in safe, responsible, and critical media practices, and yet the focus of digital citizenship instruction varies widely. While safety and privacy are essential tenets, digital citizenship is designed to be more comprehensive: to support the emotional well-being of students, to introduce concepts of intellectual property, and to foster collaborative online communities. However, too often the “cybersafety-only approach” (Casa-Todd, 2018: 15) is taken up, which can result in isolated lessons to be covered, rather than deep practices that are embedded across the curriculum. Rather than solely intending to protect students, taking the stance that digital citizenship is a social endeavor that is learned both contextually and socially would have a significant impact.

In the library, rather than censor our students who are learning about the world around them and their subsequent place in it, we might consider constructing spaces of inquiry and “maker spaces” (Peppler and Bender, 2013) or “learning commons” (Mueller 2015), where students can explore a variety of texts, media, and materials and creatively come to their own conclusions in a way that offers support and resources without being directive. As Peppler and Bender (2013) articulate, maker spaces are characterized as open-ended and fluid, and are intended “to address community problems through making” (23). They also work across disciplines, which is why the library can be a powerful place for this learning to occur. In this conception, students are not only encouraged to use their own questions to drive inquiry, but they are engaged in thinking about community problems such as economic hardship.

As early childhood scholars (Corsaro, 1992; Yoon, 2014) have argued, play is an important way for students to exert their agency and construct social worlds. In fact, “children creatively appropriate information from the adult world to produce their own unique peer cultures” (Corsaro, 1992: 168). Therefore, opening up spaces for playful engagement with literacy (as Carla did) not only allows students to learn about their environment, but to find spaces for belonging within it. Rather than overly direct student movement, choice, and experience, a learning commons approach would allow students to direct themselves in thinking through complex ideas. As such, students would utilize a variety of compelling texts and literacy practices—multimodal literacies, digital literacies, and dramatization—to critically engage and make meaning from a diversity of genres, including news media for children. This is inherently at the heart of inquiry (Brown, 2012), and constructs the library as a space that is open, fluid, and driven by choice (Mueller, 2015).

As Freire (1970) argued, in order for students to advocate for themselves and to critique the injustices in their world, they must read both the word and the world. Libraries are one such space where students have access to a vast selection of texts (the word), and can use those texts to inquire into the social, political, and cultural worlds that surround them. Equipping students with a variety of literacy skills, providing opportunities to explore multiple texts and ways of making meaning, and leaving inquiry open-ended are essential factors in supporting critical, engaged young readers and citizens.

Conclusion

Our library spaces—whether they are within schools or open to the public—will continue to evolve alongside shifting notions of literacy. As students increasingly come into contact with digital texts and media sources, it is imperative that they have the critical skills to evaluate content and determine the inherent perspectives and assumptions within each text. The library has a unique opportunity to offer an open space for students to be able to approximate these skills in an authentic environment and come to their own conclusions about how to solve complex global issues. To do so, however, adults must be willing to relinquish some control of content. Instead, young children must be given access to complex material, and seen as highly capable of critical thinking and active in their pursuits of knowledge.