High Stakes Education: Inequality, Globalization, and Urban School Reform, by Pauline Lipman. New York: Routledge, 2004. 224pp. $29.95, paperback. Through a case study of four elementary schools in the Chicago system, Lipman argues that "neoliberal education programs and the drive to accountability and standardization have won out because they have captured the national, even international conversation about education as the only alternative for the 'failure' of public schooling" (p. 180). She skillfully argues the intricate connections between realities of race, globalization, the economy, and politics that hold the answers to real school reform. As Lipman carefully walks us through her rigorous ethnographic study of teachers, students, parents, and the Chicago Public School systems policies, it is clear that current policies and practices must be challenged and changed in order for schools to successfully educate our youth and future workers. That challenge, according to the author, requires a new language of critique that incorporates the multiple perspectives of teachers, students, families, and communities that are committed to providing the best education for children. That change must incorporate more progressive and socially just policies and means of assessing quality and effective learning in all schools. Through the extensive interviews and thorough analysis of school policies, Lipman is able to show what happens to teachers and schools when the measure of its success is predicated purely on the results of tests, accountability, and standards. She uncovers the "hidden effects," of strict accountability requirements and shows that urban schools are often training grounds for secondclass citizenry, further disenfranchising youth as communities of citizens that will never realize the "American dream," nor have the opportunity to improve their lives. She confirms Jay MacLeod's (1995) findings that schools provide the training for low-skilled jobs, thus "leveling" students' aspirations but at the same time reprimanding these youths and their parents for not being academically, socially, or economically successful. Whereas MacLeod's study of two gangs in a housing project leads to similar conclusions through sociological theoretical lens, Lipman is thorough in her analysis of urban education and its "human cost" as it interrelates with global, economic, and political policies in this nation. She frames her analysis around four social justice imperatives-equity, agency, cultural relevance, and critical literacy, and makes it clear that race is central to the politics of education. Thus, she more strongly demonstrates how urban schools carry out urban education policy that continues to perpetuate the negative effects of poverty and unequal opportunities for our future workers, particularly African Americans and Latinas. Lipman leads us to recognize that new policies for success, largely related to the accountability measures and consequences of No Child Left Behind (2002), have relegated teaching and learning to teaching for the test, disregarding any concerns students bring to school, or recognizing any other talents. Through her critical examination of "successful," as well as "failing schools," she raises questions about standardization, arguing that "these new standards and measures of accountability exacerbate existing educational and social inequities and contribute to new ones" (p. 3). Understanding the negative effect of high-stakes testing and accountability measures, one can quickly relate these findings to low-wage jobs, lack of health care and retirement security, racism, homelessness, and the new immigrant faces in the workplace. Race continues to be central to the persistence of inequality. Changing demographics, coupled with new inequalities among and within cities, have important implications for urban school policy, including rationalizing "teaching and learning to serve global economic competition" (p. …

High Stakes Education: Inequality, Globalization, and Urban School Reform

Language, Culture, and Power Bilingual Families and the Struggle for Quality Education. Lourdes Diaz Soto. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. 170 pp.

Language, Culture, and Power: Bilingual Families and the Struggle for Quality Education

Theorists concerned with mental health prejudice and discrimination have conceptualized these problems as stigma , typically defined as a labeling process that triggers stereotyping, followed by acts of discrimination that result in loss of status and reduced life options for people who are perceived to have mental illnesses (Goffman, 1963; Link & Phelan, 2001). Other stigma theorists have advocated for a social justice perspective (e.g., Corrigan, Watson, Byrne, & Davis, 2005; Perlin & Dorfman, 1993) or have recognized the need to consider meso- and macro-level factors (Pescosolido, Martin, Lang, & Olafsdottir, 2008) or structural arrangements (e.g., Corrigan, Markowitz, & Watson, 2004). Informed by critical theories and oppression literature, this paper offers theoretical arguments for replacing the current stigma model with a critical anti-oppression paradigm. This paradigm expands our lens to emphasize transforming the power dynamics inherent in system-level arrangements and structures that privilege those who are perceived as not having mental illnesses while disadvantaging others who are perceived to have mental illnesses. We conclude with implications of this paradigm for practice and research.

Reconceptualizing Stigma: Toward a Critical Anti-Oppression Paradigm

If we are to aim toward a genuine democracy, we must be willing to look at the uncomfortable topics that continue to sabotage what we aspire to as a society. This article aims to problematize the ways we conceive of and implement the social studies. To do so, I investigate the social studies in K-12 practice through critical theoretical lenses, including critical race theory (CRT), Latino critical theory (LatCrit) and tribal critical theory (TribalCrit). Various practical resources are offered for teachers to bring a deeper level of equity to the practice of the social studies. This article provides possibilities based in both theory and practice. I discuss critical frameworks, and then, after each section, I provide resources and links to examples of critical curricula that incorporate those standpoints into the classroom. This can lead to a critical awareness regarding the ways that our democracy has shortchanged many Americans as well as the initiative to work toward change in our classrooms and society.

Racial Silences: Exploring and Incorporating Critical Frameworks in the Social Studies

This article reviews literature on U.S. bilingual education that addresses white supremacy and racism, specifically pertaining to Latinx youth and their teachers. To illustrate the wide range of th...

Researching Latinxs, racism, and white supremacy in bilingual education: A literature review

Introduction Schools are social institutions that mirror the larger society. In the United States (U.S.), a compulsory public school system was developed to address the needs of industry, speaking to the direct effect society has on the creation and purpose of schooling. "Far from creating independent thinkers, schools have always, throughout history, played an institutional role in a system of control and coercion" (Macedo in Chomsky, 2000, p 3). The general purpose of public schools has not changed since its inception-students continue to be educated to accept ideologies that serve the needs of the dominant class. Yet, the purpose of schooling has been contested throughout the history of the U.S. by both dominant groups and the oppressed. This article will explore the sociopolitical context of education policy, particularly as it relates to Latina/o education. We will highlight the status of Latina/os within the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to examine the impact of education policy designed to benefit few and disenfranchise most. The authors draw attention to the injustices of Latinas/os in CPS and examine this status within a Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Latino Theory (LatCrit) framework. CRT helped us create a space that will highlight the resistance and hope of Latina/os in CPS while uncovering the struggle and injustice. Furthermore, we will draw from the lens of LatCrit (Solorzano & Bernal, 2001) to situate our research within a paradigm that speaks to Latina/o school experiences in a very specific way. CRT and LatCrit encompass all of the same assumptions and underpinnings (Villalpando, 2004), but LatCrit provides a context for the social, historical, and political reception and impact of Latina/os in the U.S., and provides theoretical space to analyze experiences of language and immigration among other lived experiences rooted in the resistance and oppression of Latinas/os. In the last thirty years, the response of public schools to policy mandates stemming from the Civil Rights Movement that were intended to protect the rights of people of color, including Latina/os, sheds light on how little has changed in the structure and function of schools. From the time we were allowed to obtain an education in the same system as the dominant class and race, marginalized groups have been told that schools are vehicles to equal opportunity; schools have even been described as "the great equalizer." The Latina/o population is by and large, young, and the erosion of equality in American schooling has hit it hard. However, the struggle for school equity for Latina/os has been coupled with a strong history of resistance rooted in community and grassroots organizing. As Spring (1991) states; From World War II to the 1990s [and today], Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, African Americans and Mexican Americans have demanded that public schools recognize their distinct cultures and incorporate these cultures into curricula and textbooks. (p. 195) The struggle for equity in education for Latina/os has not ended. While some schools and school districts have made affirmative efforts to fully include the life experiences and histories of the students they serve, the vast majority of public schools serving Latinas/os have not done so (Valenzuela, 1999). Furthermore, while progressive educators have made some gains to better serve Latina/os during the 1960s and 1970s, the sharp conservative turn in the 1980s laid the foundation for many school policies and practices that worked against the gains made in areas such as culturally inclusive curricula and bilingual education. For this paper, we have focused on the inequities that clearly disenfranchise Latina/o students by drawing on two editions of a previous research project (Aviles, Capeheart, Davila, & Miller, 2004) and (Aviles, Capeheart, Davila, Miller, & Rodriguez-Lucero, 2006) which is discussed further in our methods section (We will refer to these reports as Dando 2004 and Dando 2006 for the duration of this paper). …

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Ann Aviles de Bradley

Papers

Examining Education for Latinas/os in Chicago: A CRT/LatCrit Approach.