Elusive Equity chronicles South Africa's efforts to fashion a racially equitable state education system from the ashes of apartheid. The policymakers who came to power with Nelson Mandela in 1994 inherited and education system designed to further the racist goals of apartheid. Their massive challenge was to transform that system, which lavished human and financial resources on schools serving white students while systematically starving those serving African, coloured, and Indian learners, into one that would offer quality education to all persons, regardless of their race. Edward Fiske and Helen Ladd describe and evaluate the strategies that South Africa pursued in its quest for racial equity. They draw on previously unpublished data, interviews with key officials, and visits to dozens of schools to describe the changes made in school finance, teacher assignment policies, governance, curriculum, higher education, and other areas. They conclude that the country has made remarkable progress toward equity in the sense of equal treatment of persons of all races. For several reasons, however, the country has been far less successful in promoting equal educational opportunity or educational adequacy. Thus equity has remained elusive. The book is unique in combining the perceptive observations of a skilled education journalist with the analytical skills of an academic policy expert. Richly textured descriptions of how South Africa's education reforms have affected schools at the grass-roots level are combined with careful analysis of enrollment, governance, and budget data at the school, provincial, and national levels. The result is a compelling and comprehensive study of South Africa's first decade of education reform in the post-apartheid period.

Dr. Pandora B. Angel was a practicing physician for thirty years. She spent twenty-three of those years as an emergency physician at a university medical center and an affiliated hospital. In Elusive Equity, Empathy, and Empowerment, she shares the challenges she faced as a female emergency physician in what is still perceived as a male profession. Addressing the gender bias and inequality she experienced while striving for and achieving a career in medicine, this memoir addresses workforce power and control, double standards, gender bias, discrimination, the boys’ club, harassment, contrived narratives for predetermined goals, retaliation, disregard for objective data, and misconceptions. Through thoughtful vignettes, lessons, and appendices, this memoir explores the persistent culture of inequity in the workplace from Angel’s perspective as a female physician in a male-dominated field. Teaching tools and lessons are provided at the end of each chapter to stimulate wider discussions of inequality, harassment, bias, and discrimination that still occur.

"Elusive Equity" chronicles South Africas efforts to fashion a racially equitable state education system from the ashes of apartheid. Edward Fiske and Helen Ladd draw on previously unpublished data, interviews with key officials, and visits to dozens of schools to describe the changes made in school finance, teacher assignment policies, governance, curriculum, higher education, and other areas.

In Elusive Equality, Jeffrey L. Littlejohn and Charles H. Ford place Norfolk, Virginia, at the center of the South's school desegregation debates, tracing the crucial role that Norfolk's African Americans played in efforts to equalize and integrate the city's schools. The authors relate how local activists participated in the historic teacher-pay-parity cases of the 1930s and 1940s, how they fought against the school closures and "Massive Resistance" of the 1950s, and how they challenged continuing patterns of discrimination by insisting on crosstown busing in the 1970s and 1980s. Despite the advances made by local activists, however, Littlejohn and Ford argue that the vaunted "urban advantage" supposedly now enjoyed by Norfolk's public schools is not easy to reconcile with the city's continuing gaps and disparities in relation to race and class. In analyzing the history of struggles over school integration in Norfolk, the authors scrutinize the stories told by participants, including premature declarations of victory that laud particular achievements while ignoring the larger context in which they take place. Their research confirms that Norfolk was a harbinger of national trends in educational policy and civil rights. Drawing on recently released archival materials, oral interviews, and the rich newspaper coverage in the Journal and Guide, Virginian-Pilot, and Ledger-Dispatch, Littlejohn and Ford present a comprehensive, multidimensional, and unsentimental analysis of the century-long effort to gain educational equality. A historical study with contemporary implications, their book offers a balanced view based on a thorough, sober look at where Norfolk's school district has been and where it is going.

Elusive Justice addresses how educators think about and act upon, differences in schools - be they based on race, gender, class, or disability - and how discourse and practice about such differences are intimately bound up with educational justice. Rather than skip over contentious or uncomfortable dialogues about difference, Thea Abu El-Haj tackles them head on. Through rich and detailed ethnographic portraits of two schools with a commitment to social justice, she analyzes the ways discourses about difference provide a key site for both producing and resisting inequalities, and examines the dilemmas that emerge from either focusing on or ignoring them. In interrogating fundamental assumptions about difference and equity, Abu El-Haj deftly blends critique with a search for hope and possibility, to ultimately argue for ways educators might translate ideals about justice into effective practice.

In recent years, federal mandates in education have become the subject of increasing debate. Adam R. Nelson's The Elusive Ideal—a postwar history of federal involvement in the Boston public schools—provides lessons from the past that shed light on the continuing struggles of urban public schools today. This far-reaching analysis examines the persistent failure of educational policy at local, state, and federal levels to equalize educational opportunity for all. Exploring deep-seated tensions between the educational ideals of integration, inclusion, and academic achievement over time, Nelson considers the development and implementation of policies targeted at diverse groups of urban students, including policies related to racial desegregation, bilingual education, special education, school funding, and standardized testing. An ambitious study that spans more than thirty years and covers all facets of educational policy, from legal battles to tax strategies, The Elusive Ideal provides a model from which future inquiries will proceed. A probing and provocative work of urban history with deep relevance for urban public schools today, Nelson's book reveals why equal educational opportunity remains such an elusive ideal.

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