Winner of the 2000 Outstanding Book Award presented by the American Educational Research Association Winner of the 2001 American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Award Honorable Mention, 2000 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Awards Subtractive Schooling provides a framework for understanding the patterns of immigrant achievement and U.S.-born underachievement frequently noted in the literature and observed by the author in her ethnographic account of regular-track youth attending a comprehensive, virtually all-Mexican, inner-city high school in Houston. Valenzuela argues that schools subtract resources from youth in two major ways: firstly by dismissing their definition of education and secondly, through assimilationist policies and practices that minimize their culture and language. A key consequence is the erosion of students' social capital evident in the absence of academically oriented networks among acculturated, U.S.-born youth.

Provides an enhanced sense of what’s required to genuinely care for and educate the U.S.–Mexican youth in America.

An unusually successful approach to bilingual education for Dominican immigrant teens in a New York City high school

This book examines both the promise and complexity of diversifying today's teaching profession. Drawing from a 5-year study of 21 new teachers of colour working in urban, hard-to-staff schools, this book uncovers a systemic paradox that the teachers confront. They are committed to improving educational opportunities for students of colour by acting as role models, culturally/linguistically responsive teachers, and change agents. The teaching profession encouraged such commitments and some teachers acted with support from individual, organizational, and community-based sponsors. However, many of these new teachers work in schools that are culturally subtractive and have restrictive accountability policies that challenge their ability to perform cultural/professional roles to which they are committed. Many teachers internalize the contradiction, resulting in their becoming changed agents within the educational system they sought to change. This book is essential reading for educators, leaders, and policymakers.

A thoroughly revised and updated edition of the classic text. Focuses on the roles of hope, participation, and change in reforming American schools.

In The Future of Our Schools, Lois Weiner explains why teachers who care passionately about teaching and social justice need to unite the energy for teaching to efforts to self-govern and transform teacher unions. Drawing on research, her experience as a public school teacher, and as a union activist, she explains how to create the teachers unions public education desperately needs. Lois Weiner is a professor at New Jersey City University and has been a life-long teacher union activist who has served as an officer of three different union locals. She is the author of The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and their Unions: Stories for Resistanc e .

As the population of Latinx students grows in U.S. public schools and our nation seeks to address systemic inequities, racism, and xenophobia, this counternarrative provides inspiration to those wishing to reinvigorate schools and build a more caring and just world. This book documents the innovative practices, successes, and struggles of a full-service community high school serving mostly low-income, Latinx youth in an economically depressed California city. Based on 4 years of qualitative research, the author examines how educators, families, and community members established and sustained a social justice school that immersed youth in authentic cariño—a holistic blend of familial, intellectual, and critical care. By nurturing students’ moral, social, personal, and academic development, the school produced college-bound graduates ready to be agents of change in their own lives and in their communities. This case study synthesizes and extends scholarship on color-conscious, healing-centered educational care and offers rich portrayals of praxis that illuminate how schools can equip marginalized youth to thrive. “Although directed toward Latinx students, this work will benefit all students! Curry has provided us with a masterpiece.” —Gloria Ladson-Billings, professor emerita, University of Wisconsin-Madison “A must-read for teachers, researchers, and practitioners searching for a deeply authentic model for transforming schooling.” —Shawn Ginwright, San Francisco State University