Confronting book banning and assumed curricular neutrality: A critical inquiry framework

ABSTRACT

Recently, false accusations of Critical Race Theory (CRT) being taught in elementary and secondary schools have emerged in response to culturally relevant, sustaining, and revitalizing curricula; this pushback makes it difficult for many educators to safely employ culturally relevant literature in their classrooms. This article confronts the increasing censoring of curriculum (via book banning and other policies) that privileges White, unidimensional perspectives on language, culture, and curricular topics. Specifically, we suggest a critical inquiry framework (CIF) to guide how students read such text and that draws on the tenets of Yosso’s Cultural Wealth model. Our CIF is rooted in (1) student examination of the economic and political contexts of literary production and constructs of linguistic and cultural legibility, (2) critical engagement with the represented values of literature, and (3) research and critical engagement in the unrepresented and misrepresented values, languages, and cultures of the literary artifact. Collectively, these components contribute to a framework of how to engage traditionally canonical texts in ways that are culturally sustaining and revitalizing by troubling the assumed neutrality of such literature. The article demonstrates the utility of the CIF in its application to sample text; F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s essay “Winter Dreams.” We offer consideration for pedagogy and other mediating issues.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional Resources

1. Borsheim-Black, C., & Sarigianides, S. T. (2019). Letting go of literary whiteness: Antiracist literature instruction for White students. Teachers College Press.

This book offers recommendations and examples of anti-racist literature instruction in White-dominant schools. It addresses the challenge of this type of instruction across dimensions of racial literacy, selection of diverse curricular texts, highlighting voices of color, and designing assessments for these practices.

2. Thomas, E. E. (2019). The Dark Fantastic. New York University Press.

Thomas’ book addresses the barriers to publishing for YA authors and TV and film professionals of color. It explores the way that barriers to publishing intersect with representation of characters of color in popular youth and young adult speculative fiction before forwarding the possibilities of counter-storytelling to combat harmful representation.

3. Price-Dennis, D., & Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2021). Advancing racial literacies in teacher education: Activism for equity in digital spaces. Teachers College Press.

This book provides examples of how to foster and assess racial literacies in teacher education and K-12 classrooms. It focuses on multimodal and digital ways of fostering racial literacies and civic engagement for equity.