The Symbolic Boundaries of Censorship: Classes of Support for Book Removals in the United States

• In Event: Political Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Politics of Education (Table 4)

Abstract

The number of book bans in American public schools has increased dramatically over the last five years, disproportionately targeting books that engage race, sexuality, and marginalized identities (PEN America 2024). While existing research documents the scope, content, and political and social dynamics of these removals, less is known about how ordinary Americans organize their attitudes toward censorship across different types of content (Goncalves et al. 2024; Childress, Rawlings, and Maghbouleh 2025). Drawing on sociological theories of censorship and symbolic boundaries, this study examines the distinct patterns of attitudes towards book removals in public libraries among the United States population. Using data from the 2008–2024 General Social Survey, latent class analysis is employed to reveal four distinct orientations: a non-censorial majority, a broadly censorial group, and two selectively censorial classes organized around opposing moral logics—one emphasizing protection from symbolic harm and the other preserving traditional social hierarchies. Multinomial regression analyses show that class membership is systematically structured by education, religiosity, age, region, and political orientation. Together, these findings demonstrate that support for censorship is not monolithic but reflects competing boundary-drawing frameworks that shape when and for whom restrictions on public access to knowledge become legitimate. In an era of intensified cultural conflict and renewed challenges to democratic norms, understanding the symbolic boundaries that legitimize censorship is critical for explaining how restrictions on civil liberties gain popular support and infiltrate public school systems.

Author

• Emily Rose Johnson, Stanford University