Uncovering the Agenda: A Critical Discourse Analysis of BookLooks.org's "Report Cards" for LGBTQIA+ Titles

• In Event: Examining and Reimagining Constructions of Adolescence/ts, Sexuality, and Gender in Education

Abstract

Purpose
We use Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine the “report cards'' created for LGBTQIA+ titles on the BookLooks site, a review and rating website that is used to support efforts to remove large numbers of books from K-12 schools. Several scholars have explored the political and ideological motivations of book challengers as they target diverse materials when it comes to young people and their materials in schools. Specifically, empirical work has found that several rhetorical arguments are used to justify censorship, including a belief in the innocence of children and the belief that while some parents are equipped to guide the moral development of young people many others are “ignorant or neglectful” (Knox, 2015; Price, 2021). Our study adds to the scholarship that explores challengers’ motivations for attempting to restrict access to LGBTQIA+ books, specifically by examining the discourses circulating within book rating systems.

Theoretical Framework
To frame our discussions around sex, sexuality, and youth, we draw on Critical Youth Studies (CYS) (Kellner, 2014; Discussant, 2012), Queer Theory (Butler, 2006; Fausto-Sterling, 2000; Sedgwick, 2008), and CDA (Fairclough, 2014), the combination of which allows us to explore how discourses of youth, gender, and sexuality are mobilized within book banning attempts in an effort to restrict access to information and frame certain youth experiences as “normal” and “moral” while other are not. The critical theories we use help us analyze the hidden agendas on Booklooks.org, and in turn, undermine the influence they hold in restricting access to books.

Methods, Data Sources, and Analysis
CDA is used as a theory and a method and is an interdisciplinary approach that examines how discourses shape and convey ideology (Fairclough, 2014). Data for this study include book reports for 16 LGBTIA+ titles that are included in the BookLooks.org database. Contributors to the website create book reports for each of the included titles. Our analysis focused on uncovering nuances in reviewer values through their identification of “objectionable” material in the books' reports.

Findings
While the Booklooks.org site’s mission statement claims to uncover “objectionable content, including profanity, nudity, and sexual content,” the analysis of annotations pulled from the report cards of included titles reveals a far-reaching agenda. Findings suggest that this agenda includes the problematization of allyship and support for LGBTQIA+ youth, the promotion of skepticism about data and objective definitions, the systematic targeting of gender presentation that lies anywhere outside of the normative binary, and heteronormative expectations for youth and the development of their sexuality.

Significance
A careful consideration of how the report cards are crafted is informative for understanding, beyond the stated mission, how the creators of these sites render certain books, lives, and identities significant while others are deemed reprehensible. We lend empirical support for practitioners defending their school and public library LGBTQIA+ collections, as well as contribute to scholarly conversations about how discourses about gender, sexuality, and adolescence/ts are circulating in school board meetings, communications between administrators and teachers and parents, and within the curriculum in schools.

Authors

• Jenna Spiering, University of South Carolina

• Kate E Kedley, Rowan University