Who are children, what are they learning, and who is responsible for them?
Playground Politics reveals how political elites make attacks on inclusive education sound like common sense. Drawing on interviews with Kentucky parents and educators and analysis of political discourse, Shenton and Koch examine Kentucky's Senate Bill 150, a parental rights law restricting LGBTQ+ inclusion in public schools. They trace how schoolyard-style arguments cultivate fears that queerness harms children, educators indoctrinate them, and public schools have abandoned their academic missions. These fears, they demonstrate, converge as a moral panic that makes such restrictions seem necessary to protect childhood innocence and restore parental authority.
Yet many parents and educators in their study trust children's judgment and question whose rights such legislation actually advances. Connecting these experiences to national education debates, the authors show how laws promoted as child protection can restrict families' choices and undermine trust between parents and educators. In this way, “playground politics” impact all identities, not just queer ones. The authors make the case for saving public education as a playground for democracy-one where all children belong and everyone must learn to share.

Jamie Shenton is associate professor of anthropology at Centre College in Danville, KY.
Sarah E. Koch is a PhD student in sociology at Vanderbilt University.