One problem which continues to absorb social scientists is the way in which so much social deprivation stems from racial or class status. The discussion in this book is developed in two ways: firstly, careful attention is given to an examination of the way minority groups create and maintain collective identities and action. Secondly, the relationship between this movement and such topics as racism in schools, schooling, unemployment and West Indian involvement in sporting rather than academic activities is analysed, together with the nature of the educational experience of different class and gender groups.

Survival as a school teacher depends on an ability to achieve classroom control. In the years since this book was first published little has changed in this respect. Classroom control continues to lie at the heart of competent teaching. Teachers know it, pupils know it. They know it implicitly because they experience it as a normal part of their daily lives in schools. But, in this book, the author stands back from our everyday knowledge about how things work in classrooms to ask what control actually consists of. What is it? How is it recognized? How is it challenged by pupils? How is done by teachers? How is it negotiated? Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in three large secondary schools in England Martyn Denscombe explores the meaning of classroom control. He looks at the influence of teacher training and the role of school organization in establishing expectations about control, and then shows how control is played out through the interaction of teachers and pupils in class. His analysis travels well across the many contexts in which teaching occurs and provides an illuminating insight into the work of teaching and the nature of classroom life. His evidence is drawn from ethnographic fieldwork in three schools in England, and secondary sources covering the phenomenon of classroom control in the UK, USA and Australia.

Classroom Voices on Education and Race presents core educational issues— with an emphasis on race and the racial achievement gap, school culture, and curriculum—through the unfiltered and poignant voices of high school students. Students from urban, rural, and suburban public schools express a strong desire for a more active role in their classrooms, as well as for a curriculum that is more responsive to their world. Current students speak out against an increasingly complex and demanding world in which standardized testing serves to detach students from their learning and from their peers. They bear witness to increasingly competitive, content-driven classrooms that minimize open communication and critical thinking, and instead foster a culture of and cheating. And, they expose a hidden curriculum that contradicts the learning expectations of formal education. In particular, they speak to the persistence of racial stereotypes and segregation. Burdened by ignorance and misunderstandings, students address the need for honest racial dialogue facilitated by adults in their desire to cross the racial divide. Educators must listen to the voices from their classrooms in order to better participate in the lives and education of their students.

In recent decades a growing number of middle-class parents have considered sending their children to—and often end up becoming active in—urban public schools. Their presence can bring long-needed material resources to such schools, but, as Linn Posey-Maddox shows in this study, it can also introduce new class and race tensions, and even exacerbate inequalities. Sensitively navigating the pros and cons of middle-class transformation, When Middle-Class Parents Choose Urban Schools asks whether it is possible for our urban public schools to have both financial security and equitable diversity. Drawing on in-depth research at an urban elementary school, Posey-Maddox examines parents’ efforts to support the school through their outreach, marketing, and volunteerism. She shows that when middle-class parents engage in urban school communities, they can bring a host of positive benefits, including new educational opportunities and greater diversity. But their involvement can also unintentionally marginalize less-affluent parents and diminish low-income students’ access to the improving schools. In response, Posey-Maddox argues that school reform efforts, which usually equate improvement with rising test scores and increased enrollment, need to have more equity-focused policies in place to ensure that low-income families also benefit from—and participate in—school change.

The subject matter of this book – what happens in schools, the effects of curriculum change, the reasons why some children are successful and others are not – explains just why the sociology of education is one of the most important areas to achieve political importance. There are five sections to the book covering: Educational Achievement; Educational Provision; The Organization of the School; Roles in the School and Values and Learning. The editor discusses the implications of the material presented (much of which was available for the first time when this book was originally published).

In recent years the interest in the patterns and policies of South African sport has grown. This book examines the increasingly complex issue of race, class and sport in the context of South African social relations. The author disputes evaluations made purely on the question of race, maintaining that it is important to examine the complex interaction between racial and class dynamics as a background for understanding the South African way of life. The book demonstrates that sport must be understood in the context of the ensemble of social relations characterizing the South African social formation.

Annotation An exploration of how race is explicitly and implicitly handled in school.

This book is a history of the genesis and development of vocational education for young women in the United States. Home economics, trade training and commercial education – the three key areas of vocational training available to young women during the progressive era – are the focus of this work. Beginning with a study of the "woman question", or what women were supposed to be, the book traces the three curriculum areas from prescription, through lively discussions of policy to the actual programs and student responses to the programs. The author tells the story of education for work from several different perspectives and draws on a vast array of sources to paint this broad canvas of vocational education for young women at the turn of the twentieth century.

In the colorblind era of Post-Civil Rights America, race is often wrongly thought to be irrelevant or, at best, a problem of racist individuals rather than a systemic condition to be confronted. Race, Whiteness, and Education interrupts this dangerous assumption by reaffirming a critical appreciation of the central role that race and racism still play in schools and society. Author Zeus Leonardo’s conceptual engagement of race and whiteness asks questions about its origins, its maintenance, and envisages its future. This book does not simply rehearse exhausted ideas on the relationship among race, class, and education, but instead offers new ways of understanding how multiple social relations interact with one another and of their impact in thinking about a more genuine sense of multiculturalism. By asking fundamental questions about whiteness in schools and society, Race, Whiteness, and Education goes to the heart of race relations and the common sense understandings that sustain it, thus painting a clearer picture of the changing face of racism.

Looks at minority ethnic academic achievement along with a case study of the academic success of British-Chinese students.