A StoryCorps of Book Bans: A Comparative, National Pilot Study by ASU Online Undergraduates

This proposed group-based research experience will invite 12 ASU Online undergraduate students across The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to participate in a qualitative narrative inquiry study during Spring semester 2027. The StoryCorps of Book Bans project will examine the way educational stakeholders are grappling with rising book bans across the United States as well as the political and legislative backdrops influencing their experiences. Led by faculty mentors, Dr. Jessica Early and Dr. Joshua Coleman in the Department of English, the research group will use qualitative research methods to examine how individuals and communities are making sense of and responding to current political efforts to restrict access to books, particularly in K-12 educational settings.

The project will train undergraduate researchers to collect and curate first-person narratives from people whose lives and work intersect with book bans across the country. This model follows the nationwide non-profit program StoryCorps, which seeks to preserve and share the stories of everyday people. For this project, everyday people refer to educational stakeholders, including teachers, administrators, parents, and other community members impacted by school censorship. Students will help build a StoryCorps-inspired digital repository of oral histories and community-based narratives documenting the human impact of book bans across local, regional, and state contexts.