Intellectual Freedom for Young Adolescents

Childhood Education, Fall 2007 by Bucher, Katherine T, Manning, M Lee

Although some music lyrics and television content may indicate an overall easing of censorship in U.S. society, authors, educators, young people, and all other individuals who value free access to information continue to face the threat of censorship from people who try to impose their value systems on others. Recently, censors used the words in the left column of Table 1 to describe one of the books for young adolescents in the right column. See if you can match them correctly. The answers are at the end of this article.

While censorship can affect any type of communication (print and electronic) at any grade level, it presents a special problem in the upper elementary and middle school grades. Children at this level are developing cognitively, physically, and psychosocially. As they mature and become young adults, they are changing on a daily basis, with some individuals developing faster than others. "Every young adolescent is growing up, but each is taking a different road and going at a different speed on his or her journey from childhood to adulthood" (Manning & Bucher, 2005, p. 31). Teachers and library media specialists (LMSs) realize that diversity is a hallmark of 10- to 14-year-olds. They also realize the need to provide reading and instructional materials that will promote young adolescents' ability to think abstractly, to make moral judgments, and to perceive events in situational contexts. Thus, they select and use print and nonprint materials that will appeal to many different students who evidence a variety of developmental characteristics. In so doing, they need to be aware of the problems caused by censorship and must support and protect intellectual freedom. A young adolescent's cognitive development should not be limited by censors' efforts to curtail readers' thought processes.

Jalongo and Creany (1991) summarized the complexity of censorship when they stated,

Censorship is ... rooted in the universal desire to shape society and promote a personal point of view. ... Educators must be prepared to face those groups or individuals who demand that children's literature be altered, labeled, reshelved, banned or burned. Ultimately, preserving the intellectual freedom of children is the responsibility of informed, caring and responsible adults, (p. 147)

At the outset, we need to say that we agree with Jalongo and Creany (1991). We firmly believe in the rights of all individuals to freedom of expression and access to information. We also believe that parents have the right and responsibility to make decisions for their own children. However, our concerns primarily arise when a single individual or group tries to dictate what all individuals in a school may read or have access to, and thereby demand the removal of materials from a school.

This article examines the difference between censorship and intellectual freedom, identifies the most common forms of censorship, and explores the reasons that materials are currently challenged in schools. Finally, we look at ways that educators can proactively prevent censorship and respond to censorship challenges.

Censorship and Intellectual Freedom -Definitions

The American Library Association defines "censorship" as the suppression of ideas and information that certain individuals, groups, or government officials find objectionable or dangerous (American Library Association, n.d.). In general, people act as censors when they examine materials in order to identify and even suppress parts that they consider offensive. Believing that they have the correct view of what is truthful and appropriate, they seek to impose these views on others in order to protect three basic social institutions: the family, the church, or the nation (Konvitz, 2003). These people assume that if something goes against their personal beliefs, then it must be wrong, offensive to others, and might negatively influence young minds.

In contrast to censorship, intellectual freedom espouses the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. A basic tenet of a democratic society, intellectual freedom protects the rights of individuals to have free access to all expressions of ideas, and to examine all sides of a question, cause, or movement before making up their own minds. Traditionally, libraries and schools have provided ideas and information, in a variety of formats, to allow people to become well-informed citizens (American Library Association, n.d.).

Forms of Censorship

When speaking of censorship, most educators think about a challenge to materials that are already in a library media center or taught in the curriculum. Once an item has been selected for inclusion in a curriculum or school library media center, a parent might ask that his or her child not be allowed to read a certain book, a community member may object to the inclusion of a specific book in the school library, or an organized group may present a list of items that it finds objectionable. The result can be a restriction of what one student is allowed to read, the complete removal of an item from a school, the removal of an item from a booklist, or the restriction of access to an item in a library collection. Fortunately, many school divisions have official policies for dealing with censorship. Nevertheless, defending against a censorship challenge can be time-consuming, emotionally draining, and costly in terms of resources and legal fees. At times, the community pressure can be so powerful that educators may decide that it is easier to remove the material altogether, remove the material for a time until the controversy has quieted down, restrict access to the material, or remove the item from a reading list.