School Boards, Book Challenges, and State Literacy Policy: A Case Study of Policy Layering and Literacy

As book challenges have increased across US public schools, so too has the need to understand the relationship between state literacy policy, policy layering, and censorship. Policy is continually molded by external factors, and more information is needed to understand how policy shapes and is shaped by public discourse, discourse specifically related to book challenges and materials reviews. School board meetings in Greenville, South Carolina were analyzed using policy layering to explore how book bans and challenges as a state literacy policy expand or restrict both students' right to read and the power of local control over education. Findings reveal that policy is either supported or critiqued relative to whether the policy results in an outcome that aligns with that desired by the individual or state actor. In this case, individual school board members, school district members, constituent groups, and the State Department of Education all exerted pressure, resulting in a change in state‐level literacy policy. Policy layering regarding materials review as a state literacy policy resulted in the curtailing of local‐level policies and policy revision as consolidation of power. The continual layering of state and local policy led to shifts away from local control and centralized power in upper tiers of the state's political institutions.