Book and Content Ban Effects on Texas Educators

Book and content bans are rapidly increasing throughout the United States, with southern states, such as Texas, typically facing the most bans. Previous research focuses on surveying educators about the policies and, to our knowledge, does not explore how educators feel about the bans. Through the use of 25 semi-structured qualitative interviews with Texas teachers and librarians and the use of a knowledge check and demographic form, the following research questions were asked. 1) What are teachers’ and librarians’ opinions on content and book bans? 2) What is their knowledge of them? 3) Do these opinions and perceptions vary based on the political stance of the surrounding school districts? Because the implementation of restrictive policies varies based on the political affiliation of the surrounding area, the school districts were categorized based on historical voting data. The sample had the following breakdown: 10 educators from Republican districts, eight educators from districts with a diminishing Republican majority (DRM), and seven educators from Democratic districts (N=25). The knowledge check assessed whether certain classroom activities/readings would be allowed under current legislation. Results indicate those in Republican and Democratic districts feel least affected and claim limited knowledge about bans. Conversely, educators in districts with a DRM felt most impacted by banning legislation. Educator fear was relatively evenly distributed among the respondents. Knowledge check results suggest educators know the most about book ban legislation and less about content bans, suggesting that legislation about content bans is unclear to educators. Republican district respondents averaged 10 of 13 questions correct, Democratic district respondents passed nine questions, and respondents in districts with a DRM passed seven. We hypothesize that this low pass rate is due to a high amount of fear being present in districts with a DRM, and thus, they feel the need to self-censor.