Dissertation
Falling down the stairs & finding vitality: exploring student response to banned books through political, feminist, & schoolish discourses in a high school book club
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Summer 2025
DOI: 10.25820/etd.008081
Abstract
Research suggests that when youth readers read and discuss young adult literature (YAL), they engage in personal meaning making (Thein, Guise, & Sloan, 2015; Guarisco, Brooks, & Freeman, 2017; Ginsberg & Glenn, 2019). Furthermore, when youth readers engage in these discussions in community, opportunities are created to challenge and dig deeper into initial responses (Park, 2012; Neville, 2018; Meixner & El Scupp, 2019). However, in this current political moment, YAL narratives are being challenged and banned in classrooms and libraries at unprecedented rates (Friedman & Johnson, 2022). These challenges and bans work to protect the current status quo and white supremacy; many of the narratives under scrutiny feature LGBTQ+ characters or protagonists of color (Daley, 2020). Furthermore, these bans present a script (Ahmed, 2015) of what youth readers supposedly must be protected from, assuming that books have one static message. But reader response theory (Rosenblatt, 1994) illustrates that meaning making happens in conjunction with the reader, the text, and context.
Drawing on reader response theory, feminist theory, and the role of emotion in literature response, this qualitative study examined high school youth readers’ responses to YAL in one out-of-school book club. Specifically, the book club read YAL narratives that have been challenged or banned with feminist themes. This study was guided by the following research questions:
1. What topics and questions emerge when youth readers read and discuss banned and challenged young adult literature with feminist themes in one out-of-school book club?
2. What discourses and emotions do youth readers draw on when reading and discussing banned and challenged young adult literature with feminist themes in one out-of-school book club?
The findings of this study suggest that discourses, whether academic, political, or feminist discourse, provide roles to inhabit. While these discourses might initially help with building community, these roles ultimately discourage the affirmation of difference (Tanner, 2025) and narrow space for vitality (Boldt, 2021). One way to engage in relationality more fully through reading (Castillo, 2022) is to open up spaces for vitality, honoring vitality rights (Tanner, 2025; Boldt, 2021).
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Falling down the stairs & finding vitality: exploring student response to banned books through political, feminist, & schoolish discourses in a high school book club
- Creators
- Katie Priske
- Contributors
- Amanda H Thein (Advisor)Samuel J Tanner (Advisor)Lia M Plakans (Committee Member)Mary Neville (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Teaching and Learning (Language, Literacy, and Culture)
- Date degree season
- Summer 2025
- DOI
- 10.25820/etd.008081
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- xv, 237 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2025 Katie Priske
- Language
- English
- Date submitted
- 07/14/2025
- Description illustrations
- Illustrations, tables, graphs, charts
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-237).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
Scholars have found that when youth readers read and discuss young adult literature, they engage in personal meaning making. In this current moment, these narratives are being banned at unprecedented rates. Little research examines how youth readers respond to banned books. This dissertation explores high school students responses in one book club, examining the topics and questions that emerged and the discourses that youth readers drew on when discussing banned or challenged young adult literature with feminist themes.
- Academic Unit
- Teaching and Learning
- Record Identifier
- 9984948641902771
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