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Re: Sexuality and Religion and Curriculum
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From: Charles Bayless <charles.bayless_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 11:15:25 -0400
This is a very hard topic to nail down. I think I must be misunderstanding some of the positions being advanced. Apologies for any misinterpretations on my part. (Sorry for the dump. Travelling and very infrequent internet connectivity).
Is this much ado about nothing? In ballpark numbers, there are 300 million Americans checking out 2.4 billion books from 100,000 libraries. And in the course of any particular year, there are only 3-600 formal challenges. Granted, a fair number may not get recorded. More pertinently, for every formal challenge there are probably a thousand incidents as described by Ed, where the librarian is able to satisfactorily explain the justification for the book to the patron, thereby averting a formal challenge. As several people have commented though, probably the greatest source of low formal challenges is that librarians are highly attuned to the local community values and standards and are probably not acquiring a lot of books that are likely to generate controversy. Is that a bad thing? I don’t know. Are librarians supposed to lead community values, reflect them, or merely respond to them? I don’t think there is a clear answer, more of a perpetual interplay.
(De)Selection is not censorship. 100,000 libraries, 100,000 missions and very few dollars. Librarians, with unlimited patron wants and very limited acquisition budgets are in the unenviable position of trying to strike a balance between multiple operating objectives, multiple communities, logistical constraints (square footage and shelf space), multiple patron wants and very limited budgets. I think the practical reality is that they can only get so far out in front of community values before coming a cropper as Ed’s experience would suggest. Both selection and deselection are driven by the individual library missions, objectives and enterprise measured goals. All those are presumably, to a greater or lesser extent, in turn shaped by community norms. How those missions, objectives, and goals might affect individual titles is complicated and very local. I am not sure that anyone can make a blanket statement regarding all the trade-offs involved. With a fixed budget and fixed shelf space, if one topic area is expanded
(say international studies and cultures) then some other area has to be contracted (owing to fixed space). Which books should be deselected? Low circ books (which might disproportionately affect specialized interest groups)? High circ but multiple copy books (which might disproportionately affect the general reader)? High controversy books which embroil the library in issues that might harm its position and reputation (but which do serve a readership)? I think characterizing non-selection or deselection as censorship is problematic without very local and very particular information. In some instances perhaps it is, but it is not necessarily so.
Isn’t sex education an entirely separate discussion? I understand that nonfiction ties in to this but isn’t that going to be driven almost entirely by local community standards? There is no standard of sex education in the US, and as best as I can tell, some 20-40% never receive any formal sex education and for those that do, it is a mishmash of biology, AIDS/STD awareness, teen pregnancy initiatives, and sociology. Given the wide range of community approaches to sex education, one would expect there to be a wide range of attitudes to nonfiction sex education related materials and sex in literature. But that isn’t really a book/literary issue but a sex education issue as far as I can tell. A local commitment to reasonably comprehensive sex education would likely clear the way for a much more receptive attitude towards literary materials. Absent such a commitment, likely there remains much resistance. Not saying that everything becomes easy, just easier.
Are librarians in a position to assess factual accuracy of materials much less religious materials? I must admit, that suggestion startled me. I understand that libraries don’t want to willy-nilly acquire any old book with absurd claims. On the other hand, religions are all belief based, not empirical frameworks. If you open the door to restricting materials that don’t conform with a librarian’s understanding of the medical literature, then where does that place you with regard to Christian Scientists (as an example)? How about acupuncture, chiropractics, astrology, New Age, etc. It seems to me that the fastest way for librarians to fall in to disrepute would be for them to be seen to be filtering out materials with which they might not agree. We have too few trusted public institutions as it is to lose one more. But perhaps I am misreading the concern that was being expressed.
If the principle is that librarians should make judgments of the factual accuracy of religious related materials, then why would that not extend to other, more empirical fields such as economics, climate change, political theory, gender studies, etc. All fields have their passionate beliefs that are either unsupported by facts or can advance only equivocal evidence. I know that can’t be what is being suggested but it seems to be the logical contention.
Beyond all that is the simple fact that science is never settled, it is always contingent. A simple example. For 30-40 years it has been the received wisdom that barring very particular circumstances, by far the best way (in terms of health benefits) to feed an infant is breastfeeding. The causal mechanisms were known. The near term health benefits were well documented. There were lots of credible studies by credible teams in multiple countries. The only caveat was confounding variables. For example, mothers who breast feed also tend to be better educated, higher income, and more of them are full time mothers; all variables known to also yield better health outcomes for infants. So are those variables causing the superior health benefits or is it the breastfeeding? The researchers thought they had controlled for those variables but it remained an open issue. The most recent study to address this was large in terms of number of participants and longitudinal over a couple of decades. To address the confounding variables, they looked at intra-family comparisons, i.e. the health differences between siblings within the same family, some of whom were breastfed and others not. The results were that in the long term, there were no health differences between the two nutritional approaches. I raise this not as a debate about breastfeeding but as an example of how uncertain and contingent much of our knowledge is. A particular librarian might disagree with a particular health claim in a religious tract and in fact there might be good evidence to support the librarian’s position. But only for the time being. All knowledge is contingent.
There is the further risk that the accuracy standard would be differentially applied – more strict for some religions, less for others. More strict for unpopular positions and less strict for commonly held (but inaccurate) positions.
Intellectual freedom is having unfiltered access to information in order to make an informed judgment. Restricting information to only that deemed acceptably correct seems just another form of censorship.
In addition to all that, it would appear to me that excluding religious (or any other materials) based on a librarian’s assessment of accuracy would fall significantly afoul of ALA Code of Ethics I, II, VI and VII.
What are the issues associated with sex in YA literature when used in schools? There is no real issue regarding sex in YA literature for the 70% which are purchased by individuals. For the 30% acquired by schools and libraries, there are two separate issues (it seems to me). Libraries
(public and school) face potential challenges. But that is almost entirely a local issue taking into account local circumstances, community values, library missions, processes, etc. as described above. Hard to comment other than on isolated cases.
I think the real issue here is with regard to classroom use. All librarians I know are highly attuned to community standards and usually are quite careful about picking their battles. It is my sense that it is teachers who get in to the most trouble and the ALA statistics support this. Books in the classroom are the single largest source of challenges. I suspect that the root cause of this might be the fairly wide gulf between the most enthused and effective teachers and all the rest. This enthusiasm/capability gap shows up persistently in education. Initiatives are trialed on a small scale with great results and then fail dramatically when scaled to other schools, the district or the state. The DOE program What Works, which empirically tests numerous initiatives or pedagogical theories has about a 90% failure rate (i.e. 90% of the proposals that have been demonstrated to work on a trial basis fail to deliver the anticipated results when subject to rigorous field testing). The key factor is usually high levels of enthusiasm and capability at the trial level that cannot be replicated at the production level. I suspect the same is true for controversial books. In the hands of a skilled and knowledgeable teacher, it can work well with great educational results. When the same book is assigned across the larger spectrum of teachers, you end up with the disasters described in this conversation – inappropriate materials tossed over the transom for summer reading without context or support, materials assigned as required that are likely to be inappropriate for particular population groups (cultural émigrés, abuse victims, members of religious households, etc.), highly nuanced texts handled by teachers unfamiliar with the issues, etc.
Is there a gender issue in here that is not being discussed? If YA is actually mostly read by adult women as multiple surveys seem to suggest, are male YA electively reading any of the books we are discussing? Other than a couple of obvious exceptions such as Absolutely True Diary, I wonder. Anyone have empirical evidence?
Where are the parents in the discussion? Whether their particular value system is deemed acceptable or not, what is the authority and responsibility of teachers and librarians in potentially contradicting the value system of parents in raising children? Obviously that is a hugely complex political and ethical issue with no clear answer. I mention it only because we seem to not be acknowledging the role and responsibilities of parents in educating children.
One of the DOE reports in the last dozen years referred to the family as the nation’s first school house and I think it is more than a handy metaphor. Children arrive to their first year of formal school with up to a three year range in particular skills owing to first school house differences. Head Start has been unable to achieve lasting results primarily because it cannot overcome the persisting influence of the first school house. When dealing with sex in literature and sex education, we are dealing with potential differences in pedagogical strategies and educational objectives between the first school house and the formal school house. Objections and challenges arise from those differences. In essence we are privileging the pedagogical strategies and educational objectives of the formal teachers over the first teachers. With only one perspective being acknowledged, I think we have little likelihood of resolving the challenges and objections.
Parents and teachers bring two different domains of knowledge to the table, both of which are critical for more challenging books and themes. Parents bring deep knowledge of the child, their interests, capabilities, history, and experiences. They also bring the values context in which the child is being raised. Teachers bring deep content knowledge of the subject. (Both statements are statements of ideal and reality usually falls some degree short of the ideal.) Teaching a text that is challenging is easiest done when both domains of knowledge are congruent. There are plenty of circumstances where this happens naturally. The bad outcomes usually happen when there is a mismatch between the two knowledge domains.
Diversity means diversity. In February we had a month long conversation about the importance of multiculturalism, diversity and by inference, the importance of respect and tolerance for alternate value systems. Much of that conversation took place in the context of culture as it relates to race and ethnicity. But culture is also shaped by religion. In March, when it comes to discussing sex in literature and the cultural objections that people raise, we are using adjectives and descriptors such as twisted, nonsensical, irrational, suppressing, interfering in children getting information, censoring, etc. That seems inconsistent with a commitment to tolerance and diversity. The US is richly diverse in religious beliefs and is marked among OECD countries with how seriously its citizens take religious belief (and religious freedom). Some 60% identify religion as a very important part of their lives (another 20% claim it is fairly important). Virtually every religion has fairly explicit belief sets and values associated with sex, gender, orientation, etc. I suspect virtually no sex in YA is consistent with the religious precepts of most religions. So how do we practice tolerance and diversity in the face of such conflict? I don’t think it should be by disparaging those who differ.
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Received on Thu 13 Mar 2014 10:16:24 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 11:15:25 -0400
This is a very hard topic to nail down. I think I must be misunderstanding some of the positions being advanced. Apologies for any misinterpretations on my part. (Sorry for the dump. Travelling and very infrequent internet connectivity).
Is this much ado about nothing? In ballpark numbers, there are 300 million Americans checking out 2.4 billion books from 100,000 libraries. And in the course of any particular year, there are only 3-600 formal challenges. Granted, a fair number may not get recorded. More pertinently, for every formal challenge there are probably a thousand incidents as described by Ed, where the librarian is able to satisfactorily explain the justification for the book to the patron, thereby averting a formal challenge. As several people have commented though, probably the greatest source of low formal challenges is that librarians are highly attuned to the local community values and standards and are probably not acquiring a lot of books that are likely to generate controversy. Is that a bad thing? I don’t know. Are librarians supposed to lead community values, reflect them, or merely respond to them? I don’t think there is a clear answer, more of a perpetual interplay.
(De)Selection is not censorship. 100,000 libraries, 100,000 missions and very few dollars. Librarians, with unlimited patron wants and very limited acquisition budgets are in the unenviable position of trying to strike a balance between multiple operating objectives, multiple communities, logistical constraints (square footage and shelf space), multiple patron wants and very limited budgets. I think the practical reality is that they can only get so far out in front of community values before coming a cropper as Ed’s experience would suggest. Both selection and deselection are driven by the individual library missions, objectives and enterprise measured goals. All those are presumably, to a greater or lesser extent, in turn shaped by community norms. How those missions, objectives, and goals might affect individual titles is complicated and very local. I am not sure that anyone can make a blanket statement regarding all the trade-offs involved. With a fixed budget and fixed shelf space, if one topic area is expanded
(say international studies and cultures) then some other area has to be contracted (owing to fixed space). Which books should be deselected? Low circ books (which might disproportionately affect specialized interest groups)? High circ but multiple copy books (which might disproportionately affect the general reader)? High controversy books which embroil the library in issues that might harm its position and reputation (but which do serve a readership)? I think characterizing non-selection or deselection as censorship is problematic without very local and very particular information. In some instances perhaps it is, but it is not necessarily so.
Isn’t sex education an entirely separate discussion? I understand that nonfiction ties in to this but isn’t that going to be driven almost entirely by local community standards? There is no standard of sex education in the US, and as best as I can tell, some 20-40% never receive any formal sex education and for those that do, it is a mishmash of biology, AIDS/STD awareness, teen pregnancy initiatives, and sociology. Given the wide range of community approaches to sex education, one would expect there to be a wide range of attitudes to nonfiction sex education related materials and sex in literature. But that isn’t really a book/literary issue but a sex education issue as far as I can tell. A local commitment to reasonably comprehensive sex education would likely clear the way for a much more receptive attitude towards literary materials. Absent such a commitment, likely there remains much resistance. Not saying that everything becomes easy, just easier.
Are librarians in a position to assess factual accuracy of materials much less religious materials? I must admit, that suggestion startled me. I understand that libraries don’t want to willy-nilly acquire any old book with absurd claims. On the other hand, religions are all belief based, not empirical frameworks. If you open the door to restricting materials that don’t conform with a librarian’s understanding of the medical literature, then where does that place you with regard to Christian Scientists (as an example)? How about acupuncture, chiropractics, astrology, New Age, etc. It seems to me that the fastest way for librarians to fall in to disrepute would be for them to be seen to be filtering out materials with which they might not agree. We have too few trusted public institutions as it is to lose one more. But perhaps I am misreading the concern that was being expressed.
If the principle is that librarians should make judgments of the factual accuracy of religious related materials, then why would that not extend to other, more empirical fields such as economics, climate change, political theory, gender studies, etc. All fields have their passionate beliefs that are either unsupported by facts or can advance only equivocal evidence. I know that can’t be what is being suggested but it seems to be the logical contention.
Beyond all that is the simple fact that science is never settled, it is always contingent. A simple example. For 30-40 years it has been the received wisdom that barring very particular circumstances, by far the best way (in terms of health benefits) to feed an infant is breastfeeding. The causal mechanisms were known. The near term health benefits were well documented. There were lots of credible studies by credible teams in multiple countries. The only caveat was confounding variables. For example, mothers who breast feed also tend to be better educated, higher income, and more of them are full time mothers; all variables known to also yield better health outcomes for infants. So are those variables causing the superior health benefits or is it the breastfeeding? The researchers thought they had controlled for those variables but it remained an open issue. The most recent study to address this was large in terms of number of participants and longitudinal over a couple of decades. To address the confounding variables, they looked at intra-family comparisons, i.e. the health differences between siblings within the same family, some of whom were breastfed and others not. The results were that in the long term, there were no health differences between the two nutritional approaches. I raise this not as a debate about breastfeeding but as an example of how uncertain and contingent much of our knowledge is. A particular librarian might disagree with a particular health claim in a religious tract and in fact there might be good evidence to support the librarian’s position. But only for the time being. All knowledge is contingent.
There is the further risk that the accuracy standard would be differentially applied – more strict for some religions, less for others. More strict for unpopular positions and less strict for commonly held (but inaccurate) positions.
Intellectual freedom is having unfiltered access to information in order to make an informed judgment. Restricting information to only that deemed acceptably correct seems just another form of censorship.
In addition to all that, it would appear to me that excluding religious (or any other materials) based on a librarian’s assessment of accuracy would fall significantly afoul of ALA Code of Ethics I, II, VI and VII.
What are the issues associated with sex in YA literature when used in schools? There is no real issue regarding sex in YA literature for the 70% which are purchased by individuals. For the 30% acquired by schools and libraries, there are two separate issues (it seems to me). Libraries
(public and school) face potential challenges. But that is almost entirely a local issue taking into account local circumstances, community values, library missions, processes, etc. as described above. Hard to comment other than on isolated cases.
I think the real issue here is with regard to classroom use. All librarians I know are highly attuned to community standards and usually are quite careful about picking their battles. It is my sense that it is teachers who get in to the most trouble and the ALA statistics support this. Books in the classroom are the single largest source of challenges. I suspect that the root cause of this might be the fairly wide gulf between the most enthused and effective teachers and all the rest. This enthusiasm/capability gap shows up persistently in education. Initiatives are trialed on a small scale with great results and then fail dramatically when scaled to other schools, the district or the state. The DOE program What Works, which empirically tests numerous initiatives or pedagogical theories has about a 90% failure rate (i.e. 90% of the proposals that have been demonstrated to work on a trial basis fail to deliver the anticipated results when subject to rigorous field testing). The key factor is usually high levels of enthusiasm and capability at the trial level that cannot be replicated at the production level. I suspect the same is true for controversial books. In the hands of a skilled and knowledgeable teacher, it can work well with great educational results. When the same book is assigned across the larger spectrum of teachers, you end up with the disasters described in this conversation – inappropriate materials tossed over the transom for summer reading without context or support, materials assigned as required that are likely to be inappropriate for particular population groups (cultural émigrés, abuse victims, members of religious households, etc.), highly nuanced texts handled by teachers unfamiliar with the issues, etc.
Is there a gender issue in here that is not being discussed? If YA is actually mostly read by adult women as multiple surveys seem to suggest, are male YA electively reading any of the books we are discussing? Other than a couple of obvious exceptions such as Absolutely True Diary, I wonder. Anyone have empirical evidence?
Where are the parents in the discussion? Whether their particular value system is deemed acceptable or not, what is the authority and responsibility of teachers and librarians in potentially contradicting the value system of parents in raising children? Obviously that is a hugely complex political and ethical issue with no clear answer. I mention it only because we seem to not be acknowledging the role and responsibilities of parents in educating children.
One of the DOE reports in the last dozen years referred to the family as the nation’s first school house and I think it is more than a handy metaphor. Children arrive to their first year of formal school with up to a three year range in particular skills owing to first school house differences. Head Start has been unable to achieve lasting results primarily because it cannot overcome the persisting influence of the first school house. When dealing with sex in literature and sex education, we are dealing with potential differences in pedagogical strategies and educational objectives between the first school house and the formal school house. Objections and challenges arise from those differences. In essence we are privileging the pedagogical strategies and educational objectives of the formal teachers over the first teachers. With only one perspective being acknowledged, I think we have little likelihood of resolving the challenges and objections.
Parents and teachers bring two different domains of knowledge to the table, both of which are critical for more challenging books and themes. Parents bring deep knowledge of the child, their interests, capabilities, history, and experiences. They also bring the values context in which the child is being raised. Teachers bring deep content knowledge of the subject. (Both statements are statements of ideal and reality usually falls some degree short of the ideal.) Teaching a text that is challenging is easiest done when both domains of knowledge are congruent. There are plenty of circumstances where this happens naturally. The bad outcomes usually happen when there is a mismatch between the two knowledge domains.
Diversity means diversity. In February we had a month long conversation about the importance of multiculturalism, diversity and by inference, the importance of respect and tolerance for alternate value systems. Much of that conversation took place in the context of culture as it relates to race and ethnicity. But culture is also shaped by religion. In March, when it comes to discussing sex in literature and the cultural objections that people raise, we are using adjectives and descriptors such as twisted, nonsensical, irrational, suppressing, interfering in children getting information, censoring, etc. That seems inconsistent with a commitment to tolerance and diversity. The US is richly diverse in religious beliefs and is marked among OECD countries with how seriously its citizens take religious belief (and religious freedom). Some 60% identify religion as a very important part of their lives (another 20% claim it is fairly important). Virtually every religion has fairly explicit belief sets and values associated with sex, gender, orientation, etc. I suspect virtually no sex in YA is consistent with the religious precepts of most religions. So how do we practice tolerance and diversity in the face of such conflict? I don’t think it should be by disparaging those who differ.
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Received on Thu 13 Mar 2014 10:16:24 AM CDT
