Examines the educational experiences of minority groups in different international contexts, from the USA, Finland, Rwanda, India, South Africa, Hungary, China and the UK.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions—now with a new Afterword by the author. #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Post, The New York Public Library, Fortune, Smithsonian Magazine, Marie Claire, Slate, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Award Longlist • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist • Kirkus Prize Finalist “As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.” In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.

Post-Mandal, the demand for reservations by various groups has become a consistent feature of Indian politics. Yet, the focus remains on caste, with little attention paid to the under-representation of religious minorities in India. The book takes up the case of relative disadvantage and interogates the multiple and overlapping dimensions of deprivation. Hasan argues that, in view of the comparative evidence avaiable, presently excluded and disadvantaged groups should also qualify for affirmative action. This book will interest students and scholars of Indian politics, sociology, and history.

Ethcaste is a theoretical analysis and interpretation of one of the most complex and controversial groups in U.S. society--the black middle class. While this group has received accolades from the liberal journalistic press as well as academia, it has also been highly criticized and oftentimes ridiculed by radical black political activists and intellectuals. This analysis represents an effort to clarify the larger black community as an oppressed group constrained by the capitalist racial dynamics of the dominant white society. In so doing, it summarizes and critiques the major theoretical approaches to the study of social class in U.S. sociology as well as the dominant theories of race and ethnic relations. Noting that most of this preceding scholarship has studied the black community from the perspective that blacks constitute a racial (thus non-cultural) group as opposed to an ethnic (distinct cultural) group, the author presents compelling evidence of the vitality of black American culture and argues persuasively that any analysis of the black middle class must locate it within the cultural dynamics of the larger black community. The core argument in the text is that the so-called racial struggle must be re-defined as a cultural struggle where the core values, norms, and beliefs of the black community have been and continue to be in an intense struggle for dominance with the core values, norms, and beliefs of the white community. In essence, the book offers an alternative model for describing and interpreting the historical and contemporary racial dynamics between the black and white communities.

Lower school achievement of minority children is usually explained by projecting "deficits" upon the children -- deficits that are attributed to genetic or environmental causes. In contrast with tradition, the contributors to this book demonstrate how group differences in academic accomplishment and test scores are affected by cultural factors and standard educational practices as well.

This book is the definitive and final presentation of John Ogbu’s cultural ecological model and the many debates that his work has sparked during the past decade. Organized as a dialogue between John Ogbu and the scholarly community, Minority Status, Oppositional Culture, and Schooling is essential reading for anyone interested in the study of the academic achievement gap

This text is a comprehensive Introduction for all professionals working with bilingual children. For speech therapists, doctors, psychologists, counsellors, teachers, special needs personnel, the book addresses important issues at a practical level.