Reauthoring Savage Inequalities brings together scholars, educators, practitioners, and students to counter dominant narratives of urban educational environments. Using a community cultural wealth lens, contributors center the strategies, actions, and ways of knowing communities of color use to resist systemic oppression. So often, discussions of urban schooling are filled with stories of what Jonathan Kozol famously referred to as "savage inequalities" in his 1991 book of the same title—with tales of deficiency and despair. The counternarratives in this volume grapple with the inequalities highlighted by Kozol. Yet, in foregrounding lived experiences of educating and being educated in schools and communities that were systemically isolated and disenfranchised then and continue to be thirty years later, Reauthoring Savage Inequalities brings nuance to depictions of teaching and learning in urban areas. In nineteen essays, as well as commentaries, a foreword, and an afterword, contributors engage readers in critical dialogue about the importance of community cultural wealth. They identify the sources of support that enable students, staff, parents, and community members to succeed and thrive despite the purposeful divestment in communities of color across this nation's cities.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “An impassioned book, laced with anger and indignation, about how our public education system scorns so many of our children.”—The New York Times Book Review In 1988, Jonathan Kozol set off to spend time with children in the American public education system. For two years, he visited schools in neighborhoods across the country, from Illinois to Washington, D.C., and from New York to San Antonio. He spoke with teachers, principals, superintendents, and, most important, children. What he found was devastating. Not only were schools for rich and poor blatantly unequal, the gulf between the two extremes was widening—and it has widened since. The urban schools he visited were overcrowded and understaffed, and lacked the basic elements of learning—including books and, all too often, classrooms for the students. In Savage Inequalities, Kozol delivers a searing examination of the extremes of wealth and poverty and calls into question the reality of equal opportunity in our nation’s schools. Praise for Savage Inequalities “I was unprepared for the horror and shame I felt. . . . Savage Inequalities is a savage indictment. . . . Everyone should read this important book.”—Robert Wilson, USA Today “Kozol has written a book that must be read by anyone interested in education.”—Elizabeth Duff, Philadelphia Inquirer “The forces of equity have now been joined by a powerful voice. . . . Kozol has written a searing exposé of the extremes of wealth and poverty in America’s school system and the blighting effect on poor children, especially those in cities.”—Emily Mitchell, Time “Easily the most passionate, and certain to be the most passionately debated, book about American education in several years . . . A classic American muckraker with an eloquent prose style, Kozol offers . . . an old-fashioned brand of moral outrage that will affect every reader whose heart has not yet turned to stone.”—Entertainment Weekly

"This work provides a detailed look at how teaching and learning in higher education has changed after the pandemic"--

Based on data from some of the larger black communities in the U.S., this book shows the impact of both individual and environmental influences on black homicide. While it primarily addresses black-on-black homicide, its purpose is to illustrate the effect of the environment on increasing the likelihood of victimization. Race, Place, and Risk demonstrates how changes in the urban economy during the past twenty-five years have played a major role in elevating the risk of victimization in large urban communities and in altering the structure of victimization as well.

Interrupting Class Inequality in Higher Education explores why socioeconomic inequality persists in higher education despite widespread knowledge of the problem. Through a critical analysis of the current leadership practices and policy narratives that perpetuate socioeconomic inequality, this book outlines the trends that negatively impact low- and middle-income students and offers effective tools for creating a more equitable future for higher education. By taking a solution-focused approach, this book will help higher education students, leaders, and policy makers move from despair and inertia to hope and action.

Explores how race and gender matter on campus and how Black males navigate college for academic and personal success. This work marks a radical shift away from the pervasive focus on the challenges that Black male students face and the deficit rhetoric that often limits perspectives about them. Instead, Derrick R. Brooms offers reflective counter-narratives of success. Being Black, Being Male on Campus uses in-depth interviews to investigate the collegiate experiences of Black male students at historically White institutions. Framed through Critical Race Theory and Blackmaleness, the study provides new analysis on the utility and importance of Black Male Initiatives (BMIs). This work explores Black men’s perceptions, identity constructions, and ambitions, while it speaks meaningfully to how race and gender intersect as they influence students’ experiences. “Well written and informative, this exciting project cuts across many of the strengths of previous publications and fills significant theoretical and methodological gaps by focusing on authentically voiced Black men who are finding and making their way in higher education and in life.” — James Earl Davis, coeditor of Educating African American Males: Contexts for Consideration, Possibilities for Practice

In this book on higher education the contributors make The Black Lives Matter (#BLM) their focus and engage in contemporary theorizing around the issues central to the Movement: Black Deprivation, Black Resistance, and Black Liberation. The #BLM movement has brought national attention to the deadly oppression shaping the everyday lives of Black people. With the recent murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd from state-sanctioned violence by police, the public outrage and racial unrest catapulted #BLM further into the mainstream. Institutional leaders (e.g., provosts, department heads, faculty, campus administrators), particularly among white people, soon began realizing that anti-Blackness could no longer be ignored, making #BLM the most significant social movement of our time. The chapters included in this volume cover topics such as white institutional space and the experiences of Black administrators; a Black transnational ethic of Black Lives Matter; depictions of #BLM in the media; racially liberatory pedagogy; campus rebellions and classrooms as sites for Black liberation; Black women’s labor and intersectional interventions; and Black liberation research. The considerations for research and practice presented are intended to assist institutional leaders, policy-makers, transdisciplinary researchers, and others outside higher education, to dismantle anti-Blackness and create supportive mechanisms that benefit Black people, especially those working, learning and serving in higher education. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.