Empty Libraries and Book-Fueled Bonfires
Location
Hager-Lubbers Exhibition Hall
Description
PURPOSE: Book bans have become the latest weapon in an ideological battle in American politics. Bans have increased 33% across the country and 3,362 books removed from school libraries; this has created access gaps (PEN, 2023). I examine how public libraries, parents, and educational advocates attempt to fill the gap by creating learning fissures. To better understand impacts of the communicative process in creating these unique educational fissures, I employ critical communication pedagogy as a theoretical framework to explore communicative acts and understand how communication can help researchers and practitioners contest and deconstruct systemic power structures (Kahl, 2011). CCP allows dialogue so people can be liberated from oppression. (Allen, 2011). SUBJECTS: 15 - 20 local parents and librarians will be contacted through snowball sampling. METHODS: Internet data scraping to examine social media data, interviews, and ethnographic observations. ANALYSIS: Critical discourse analysis to analyze the themes that emerge from internet data, interviews, and ethnographic observations. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS Book bans are highly emotional topics. Local communities can find ways to provide books and create new learning environments outside the school classrooms. CONCLUSION As I get into interviews and observations I expect to find local communities finding new and creative ways to create educational spaces that promote thoughtful learning in times of increased polarized discourse around book bans. The themes and experiences that emerge from this research will help readers understand how families and librarians navigate the political and cultural climate that these book bans become more prevalent in our education system.
Empty Libraries and Book-Fueled Bonfires
Hager-Lubbers Exhibition Hall
PURPOSE: Book bans have become the latest weapon in an ideological battle in American politics. Bans have increased 33% across the country and 3,362 books removed from school libraries; this has created access gaps (PEN, 2023). I examine how public libraries, parents, and educational advocates attempt to fill the gap by creating learning fissures. To better understand impacts of the communicative process in creating these unique educational fissures, I employ critical communication pedagogy as a theoretical framework to explore communicative acts and understand how communication can help researchers and practitioners contest and deconstruct systemic power structures (Kahl, 2011). CCP allows dialogue so people can be liberated from oppression. (Allen, 2011). SUBJECTS: 15 - 20 local parents and librarians will be contacted through snowball sampling. METHODS: Internet data scraping to examine social media data, interviews, and ethnographic observations. ANALYSIS: Critical discourse analysis to analyze the themes that emerge from internet data, interviews, and ethnographic observations. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS Book bans are highly emotional topics. Local communities can find ways to provide books and create new learning environments outside the school classrooms. CONCLUSION As I get into interviews and observations I expect to find local communities finding new and creative ways to create educational spaces that promote thoughtful learning in times of increased polarized discourse around book bans. The themes and experiences that emerge from this research will help readers understand how families and librarians navigate the political and cultural climate that these book bans become more prevalent in our education system.