“Please Let This be the Crassest Thing My Child Reads!”: Exploring Community Perceptions of Challenged Children’s Literature

Hartsfield, Danielle E.; Kimmel, Sue C.

doi:10.1080/02702711.2020.1768983

Cited by 6 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Because the majority of challenges in school libraries originate from parents (Jacobson, 2016), educators may understandably wish to avoid choosing books likely to upset students' parents. However, recent studies suggest some parents will be allies to teachers who use controversial books in the classroom (Crawley, 2020;Hartsfield & Kimmel, 2020c;Ivey & Johnston, 2018). Professionals may also engage in preemptive censorship because they wish to avoid addressing "difficult knowledge" with their students.…”

Section: Why Does Preemptive Censorship Occur?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, awards given by professional organizations in the education field such as the NCTE (Orbis Pictus Award and Charlotte Huck Award), the National Science Teaching Association (Outstanding Science Trade Books), and the National Council for the Social Studies (Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People) are also respected and well recognized. However, educators must be advised that not all parents trust book awards or view them as marks of literary excellence (Hartsfield & Kimmel, 2020c).…”

Section: Principle 4: Meritmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Supporting the Right to Read: Principles for Selecting Children’s Books

Hartsfield¹,

Kimmel²

2020

The Reading Teacher

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Young readers depend on adults to provide access to a variety of materials representing diverse perspectives and providing information about topics of interest and importance to them. The decisions of literacy professionals to include or exclude a book from a lesson or a collection have far‐reaching implications for the kinds of ideas, information, genres, and formats available for young readers. Given this gatekeeping role, how can educators ensure that they are providing students with a diverse range of books and avoiding censorship? The authors present six principles that educators can use when making book selections for the curriculum or the classroom or school library collection; application of the principles is demonstrated using George by Alex Gino, one of the most frequently challenged children’s books in recent years. Applying these selection principles will assist educators with understanding how to avoid censorship and support students’ right to read.

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Section: Why Does Preemptive Censorship Occur?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Principle 4: Meritmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supporting the Right to Read: Principles for Selecting Children’s Books

Hartsfield¹,

Kimmel²

2020

The Reading Teacher

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“…Other reports also indicated that fear of the community and society is another factor influencing pre-emptive censorship (Hartsfield & Kimmel, 2020;Rickman, 2010;Whelan 2009). These findings reflect the external forces that come to play when attempting to understand the influential factors that lead librarians to pre-emptively censor.…”

Section: Librariansmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…After understanding the views of participants towards books that are sexual in nature, the next step was to explore their opinions regarding children's rights to read all age appropriate literature for their age group. This exploration came as a result of the various studies made by other researchers claiming that librarians have a professional obligation to build library collections that are age appropriate and diverse in nature; as well as to provide students with literature that represents the real world regardless of their beliefs and the society they live in (See Allen, 2007;Bulatowicz, 2017;Kimmel & Harstfield, 2019;Hartsfield & Kimmel, 2020). Thus, participants were asked whether they believe that children have a right to read all sorts of literature published for their age group; results showed that 53% of participants or 10 out of 19 believed that children have that right while 47% or 9 out of 19 believed otherwise, figure 3 depicts the above results.…”

Section: Participant Views On Elementary Children's Reading Rights An...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When observing the influences of pre-emptive censorship at the social system level of analysis; the external force that was focused on within the context of this study, was the culture and belief system of a society. The motivations to pre-emptively censor literature are driven by several external forces, however the most frequently mentioned is society and cultural values of a country (Bar-Tal et al, 2017;Hartsfield & Kimmel, 2020;Kimmel & Hartsfield, 2019;Martin et al, 2016;Rickman, 2010). Social systems are the highest part of the hierarchy within gatekeeping theory due to the fact that many factors are involved and they influence the other levels of analysis (Steele, 2018).…”

Section: Findings From the Social Systems Level Of Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pre-emptive Censorship of Children’s Literature that is Sexual in Nature by Elementary Librarians in the Middle East. (c2021)

Hajjar¹

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Pre-emptive censorship is leading elementary librarians to limit the direct access students should have to certain ideas and information; especially literature that are sexual in nature. This act of censorship raises the issue of the suppressing and manipulation of the educational rights that all students should have when it comes to reading literature that are age appropriate and published specifically for a certain age group. Research has shown that the act of pre-emptive censorship is actually due to internal and external forces that influence and lead to that behavior. Moreover, these internal and external forces may be from within an educational organization such as teachers, librarians themselves, administration or from outside of it such as parents, governments and society. This thesis aims to explore the internal and external forces that influence this act of pre-emptive censorship, specifically for literature that are sexual in nature and within the context of private international schools in the Middle East. Addressing the gap in the literature, this study poses the following two research questions: What are the internal forces that influence the decision of elementary librarians at private schools in the Middle East, when it comes to pre-emptively censoring children’s literature that are sexual in nature? What are the external forces that influence the and lead to that behavior. Moreover, these internal and external forces may be from within an educational organization such as teachers, librarians themselves, administration or from outside of it such as parents, governments and society. This thesis aims to explore the internal and external forces that influence this act of pre-emptive censorship, specifically for literature that are sexual in nature and within the context of private international schools in the Middle East. Addressing the gap in the literature, this study poses the following two research questions: What are the internal forces that influence the decision of elementary librarians at private schools in the Middle East, when it comes to pre-emptively censoring children’s literature that are sexual in nature? What are the external forces that influence the decision of elementary librarians at private schools in the Middle East, when it comes to preemptively censoring children’s literature that are sexual in nature? The above research questions were addressed within the theoretical framework of Kurt Lewin’s (1947) gatekeeping theory and the five levels of analysis associated with it. Furthermore, this study followed a qualitative approach using the exploratory design and involved a semi-structured questionnaire and interviews. Within the context of this study, results for the first research question showed that schools are stronger influencers for the act of pre-emptive censorship compared to personal librarian bias or opinion. Results for the second research question showed that governments, parents and a society’s culture are known to be powerful external forces that enable the act of pre-emptive censorship; where governments and parents received the highest votes among participants. Other than exploring the internal and external forces within the Middle East and being able to rate the forces according to their strengths, an even greater issue was highlighted and reflected towards the end of this study, and it’s the issue of social political power within educational systems. This reflection came as a result of the extent of control and power that external forces have within the Middle East and their control over what children may or may not be allowed exposure to.

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How Young Adult Literature Gets Taught: A review of a pedagogical manual for teacher educators, secondary teachers, and librarians

McKee,

Kellogg

2023

J Adolescent & Adult Lit

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How Young Adult Literature Gets Taught: Perspectives, Ideologies, and Pedagogical Approaches for Instruction and Assessment (Bickmore et al., 2022) seeks to provide guidelines for teacher educators and secondary English teachers on how to teach young adult literature (YAL). This 15‐chapter manual includes chapters written by experts in YAL (including higher ed professionals, a high school English teacher, and a librarian), which offer resources for teaching YAL based around various theoretical frameworks and include detailed reading lists, guided discussion questions, and more.

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“Please Let This be the Crassest Thing My Child Reads!”: Exploring Community Perceptions of Challenged Children’s Literature

Cited by 6 publications

References 18 publications

Supporting the Right to Read: Principles for Selecting Children’s Books

Supporting the Right to Read: Principles for Selecting Children’s Books

Pre-emptive Censorship of Children’s Literature that is Sexual in Nature by Elementary Librarians in the Middle East. (c2021)

How Young Adult Literature Gets Taught: A review of a pedagogical manual for teacher educators, secondary teachers, and librarians

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