The Agony of Education is about the life experience of African American students attending a historically white university. Based on seventy-seven interviews conducted with black students and parents concerning their experiences with one state university, as well as published and unpublished studies of the black experience at state universities at large, this study captures the painful choices and agonizing dilemmas at the heart of the decisions African Americans must make about higher education.

Depicts the racism and discrimination at American colleges and universities

Enchanted with novelty and obsessed with power, control, and efficiency, technocrats eagerly and imprudently plow under what they deem anachronistic relics. Utility and ease are their passwords, and the poor individual with sole recourse to personal resources and ingenuity is viewed as a waste of time and energy. What this means for education is that uniformity, predesigned programs, and abdication to an elite corps of experts have come to dominate and characterize our institutions. As antidotes for the technological age, Kuhlman suggests motifs and imagery from the classical world, such as agon, arete, and paideia. He reminds us of the agonies of the artist in the gestation of the great, soul-fulfilling creations of our past. He wonders if truly great accomplishments are possible without the pain and agony of individual struggle. He suggests that the individual psyche is withering on the vine because it is not expected to undergo the suffering necessary to transform it into an educated self.

Drawing on critical race theory and empirical data from case studies involving fifty men of African descent, this book presents a new perspective on black masculinity, maleness, sexism, and institutional racism. The book situates black masculinity in a racial, socio-historical, and postcolonial context to provide innovative ways of understanding the profound effects of institutional racism. Although its focus is primarily on people of African descent, the book addresses issues concerning all races and ethnicities, explores the harmful effects of sexism and homophobia on women and queer people, and proposes practical steps that can be taken to fight against socio-economic inequality and injustice that is racially-, gender-, and sexually-based. Given the practical nature and interdisciplinary dimension of this book, readers and educators studying race, racism, sexism, and gender issues will find it germane to their needs and their classes.

Little Miss Sunshine meets Room in this quirky, heartwarming story of friendship, loyalty and discovery. It's Newfoundland, 1986. Fourteen-year-old Bun O'Keefe has lived a solitary life in an unsafe, unsanitary house. Her mother is a compulsive hoarder, and Bun has had little contact with the outside world. What she's learned about life comes from the random books and old VHS tapes that she finds in the boxes and bags her mother brings home. Bun and her mother rarely talk, so when Bun's mother tells Bun to leave one day, she does. Hitchhiking out of town, Bun ends up on the streets of St. John's, Newfoundland. Fortunately, the first person she meets is Busker Boy, a street musician who senses her naivety and takes her in. Together they live in a house with an eclectic cast of characters: Chef, a hotel dishwasher with culinary dreams; Cher, a drag queen with a tragic past; Big Eyes, a Catholic school girl desperately trying to reinvent herself; and The Landlord, a man who Bun is told to avoid at all cost. Through her experiences with her new roommates, and their sometimes tragic revelations, Bun learns that the world extends beyond the walls of her mother's house and discovers the joy of being part of a new family -- a family of friends who care.

Five long essays by an American historian, the author of The New Radicalism in America (1965). Under the rubric of "the collapse of mass-based radical movements," Lasch examines the decline of populism, the disintegration of the American socialist party, and the weaknesses of black nationalism. Also included is a history of the Congress for Cultural Freedom and a discussion of the '60's revival of ideological controversy.

Life, Alice McKinley feels, is just one big embarrassment. Here she is, about to be a teenager and she doesn't know how. It's worse for her than for anyone else, she believes, because she has no role model. Her mother has been dead for years. Help and advice can only come from her father, manager of a music store, and her nineteen-year-old brother, who is a slob. What do they know about being a teen age girl? What she needs, Alice decides, is a gorgeous woman who does everything right, as a roadmap, so to speak. If only she finds herself, when school begins, in the classroom of the beautiful sixth-grade teacher, Miss Cole, her troubles will be over. Unfortunately, she draws the homely, pear-shaped Mrs. Plotkin. One of Mrs. Plotkin's first assignments is for each member of the class to keep a journal of their thoughts and feelings. Alice calls hers "The Agony of Alice," and in it she records all the embarrassing things that happen to her. Through the school year, Alice has lots to record. She also comes to know the lovely Miss Cole, as well as Mrs. Plotkin. And she meets an aunt and a female cousin whom she has not really known before. Out of all this, to her amazement, comes a role model -- one that she would never have accepted before she made a few very important discoveries on her own, things no roadmap could have shown her. Alice moves on, ready to be a wise teenager.