EXPOSED: - Educational malpractice on a scale that can only stagger the imagination and shock the American people; - How the child is made completely dependent-right through to junior high school-on controlled-vocabulary books. Who benefits from this; - How three-quarters of the juvenile offenders in New York City are retarded in reading; - How the Army teaches young men how to read - after the public schools call them hopeless; - How the sight-vocabulary establishment got its stranglehold on the teaching profession. How it keeps control; - The lengths to which whole-word advocates go to avoid mentioning the letters of the alphabet; - Why left-handed children are particularly harmed by the whole word method; - Why children taught by the whole-word method don't realize they should read from left to right; - The "Johnny" Rudolf Flesch wrote about: now he's an adult. And he still can't read; - Walter Cronkite warns of the dangers of a TV audience that is illiterate; - Why the educational establishment fights anyone who pushes reform; - Why some children develop a hatred for school and disrespect their teachers

"This anthology--bringing together political scientists, anthropologists, historians, sociologists, economists, and journalists--provides a serious and sophisticated theoretical and historical analysis of the state of the Latin American Left. The central thematic issues are addressed, followed by a number of case studies written by the most astute radical Left observers of the contemporary setting"--

This book explores Shimenkan—a Miao-inhabited area in Weining County, China—and its rural society from a comprehensive and long-term perspective, drawing on research conducted by the author in the course of ten years. Located in the northwest of Weining County in Guizhou Province, Shimenkan is a multiethnic area, where, e.g., the Hans, Miaos, Yis, Huis, and Buyis live. Until the early twentieth century, it was a small mountain village; the introduction of Christianity led to significant cultural and social changes in this area. Focusing on China in the twentieth century, the book addresses the traditional culture of the Miao people, the popularity of Christianity in early modern times, the management and control by the government, the socialist reform in the period of the People’s Republic of China, and the changes following the reform and opening-up in recent years. Covering a century’s worth of history, it discusses the major historical events in Northeastern Yunnan and Northwestern Guizhou around Shimenkan and analyzes local social structures, religions, ideologies, customs, and ethnic psychologies, making it a valuable addition to the study of regional social history. The book draws on archives, literature reviews, and field surveys and pursues a multi-disciplinary approach combining history, anthropology, and other disciplines. It offers a valuable resource for researchers in history, religion, and ethnology, as well as readers interested in the spread of Christianity in the Miao-inhabited areas of southwestern China.

Returning seven years later to their original pieces from this landmark book, over 20 leading scholars and activists revisit and reframe their rich contributions to a burgeoning scholarship on Whiteness. With new reflective writings for each chapter, and valuable sections on relevant readings and resources, this volume refreshes and enhances the first text to pay critical and sustained attention to Whiteness in education, with implications far beyond national borders. Contributors include George Sefa Dei, Tracey Lindberg, Carl James, Cynthia Levine-Rasky, and the late Patrick Solomon. Courageously examining diverse perspectives, contexts, and institutional practices, contributors to this volume dismantle the underpinnings of inequitable power relations, privilege, and marginalization. The book’s relevance extends to those in a range of settings, with abundant and poignant lessons for enhancing and understanding transformative social justice work in education. Revisiting The Great White North? offers terrific grist for examining the persistence of Whiteness even as it shape-shifts. Chapters are comprehensive, theoretically rich, and anchored in personal experience. Authors’ reflections on the seven years since publication of the first edition of this book complexify how we understand Whiteness, while simultaneously driving home the need not only to grapple with it, but to work against it. Christine Sleeter, Professor Emerita, California State University Monterey Bay Our understanding of racial inequities in education will be impoverished unless we look deeply at White privilege, its variation in different contexts, and resistances to change. Such is the call in this important book by Lund, Carr, and colleagues, whose analyses within Canadian contexts, framed and re-framed for this captivating revised edition, will be useful to educators and scholars around the world. Read this book today. Kevin Kumashiro, Dean, School of Education, University of San Francisco; President, National Association for Multicultural Education Darren Lund and Paul Carr have given the contributors to their original 2007 text the opportunity to revisit, rethink, reconceptualize, and reframe their earlier work. The result is an interesting, invigorating, and unsettling group of chapters that challenge readers to also revisit and rethink their own ideas about Whiteness, privilege, and power .... Teachers, administrators, policymakers, and researchers will all benefit from this critical work. Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, Language, Literacy, and Culture College of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Lund and Carr bring together a superb collection of authors who collectively challenge readers to go beyond liberal platitudes about race ... until educators confront the political, social and economic consequences of inequitably distributed privilege, the path towards equality and freedom will remain elusive. By immersing us in the discourse of Whiteness, the essays in this book illuminate that very path. Joel Westheimer, University Research Chair & Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

Literacy is thought to be one of the primary cultural transmitters of information and beliefs within any society where it exists. Yet, when considered as a social phenomenon, literacy is remarkably difficult to define, because its functions, meanings, and methods of learning vary from one cultural group to the next. This book compares and contrasts our understanding of literacy and its acquisition and retention. It addresses major debates in education policy today, such as the importance of 'mother-tongue' literacy programs, the notion of literacy 'relapse', and the concept of educational poverty. The author focuses on Moroccan children whose parents are unschooled, whose language is often different from that used in the classroom, and whose first instruction often involves rote religious teaching.

This reflection on Paulo Freire’s seminal volume, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, examines the lessons learnt from Freire and their place in contemporary pedagogical theory and practice. Freire’s work has inspired ground-breaking research which Vandenbroeck has collated, demonstrating the ongoing influence on early childhood educators. Vandenbroeck brings together an international cohort of early childhood experts to present cross-cultural perspectives on the impact of Freire’s research on education around the globe. This book covers discussions on: The background to and impact of Freire’s work Alternative approaches to supporting child development Pedagogical approaches in Portugal, South Africa, Japan, New Zealand and the United States Vandenbroeck concludes with a vision for theorising and implementing emancipatory practice in early childhood education in contexts of neoliberalism. An insightful resource for academics and students in the field of Early Childhood Education and Care, Revisiting Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a benchmark of the progress made in the field over the last half a century.