| dc.description.abstract | This qualitative study examines the way in which local attempts to censor certain books reflect a greater community agenda of controlling young female behavior, specifically sexual and violent behavior. To abet my argument, I draw on Erikson’s and Durkheim’s theories on boundary maintenance, Gusfield’s symbolic crusades, an intersectional feminist perspective, and scholarship on new forms of religious fundamentalism. Using data on frequently challenged books collected by the American Library Association, I identify the top three cities with populations over 100,000 that issued the greatest number of challenges between 2000 and 2009 (“Censorship Citadels”) and compare these to three cities of similar size that only challenged one or zero titles. I document the changes in percent white, percent foreign-born, percent homeownership, and rates of poverty in each city, in addition to examining visible boundary breaches by girls for each of the three Censorship Citadels and their comparison cities. Visible boundary breaches by girls include 1) higher rates of births to minor girls, 2) no required notification or permission from parents for a minor’s abortion, 3) higher likelihood the school distributes contraceptives and 4) more newspaper articles covering girls’ violence. Lastly, I undertake a content analysis of the books challenged by the Censorship Citadels (N=119) and the comparison cities (N=1) and theorize about the relationship between the books’ contents and the community’s perceived threats from visible norm breaking by girls. I suggest that cities experiencing more demographic changes during the decade and cities housing more megachurches are cities that attempt more social control of girls through frequent book challenges. | en_US |
