Article Abstracts:
Teacher as Rain Dancer
- by Simon Hole
-by Reba N. Page, Yvette J. Samson, and Michele D. Crockett
The value of reporting research to the people who agree to participate in
it has been accepted as commonplace in the last ten to fifteen years, especially
in applied disciplines such as education. However, there are few detailed
accounts of what actually happens when university researchers and school
practitioners engage in conversation over knowledge about schooling. There
is even less evidence about how, when, where, or for whom the process might
be valuable. In this article, Reba Page, Yvette Samson, and Michele Crockett
provide such an account. They first describe their experience with teacher
seminars in which they reported their research to members of two high school
science departments in whose classes they had studied curriculum extensively.
They then interpret these experiences from three orientations.
-by Kanavillil Rajagopalan
"A radically atheoretical posture is conceivable only in a purely theoretical
world of wild fancy," writes Kanavillil Rajagopalan in response to Gary Thomas's
article, "What's the Use of Theory?" published in the Spring 1997 issue of
the Harvard Educational Review. While agreeing with Thomas that educators
and researchers often depend too heavily on theory and that theory often
does not translate into actual practice, Rajagopalan points out that Thomas's
call for the complete abolition of theory does not translate into actual
practice either. In fact, Rajagopalan asserts, in arguing against the use
of theory in education, Thomas winds up creating a new theory--a theory of
anti-theory--fraught with many of the same problems Thomas identifies in
other people's theories. Rajagopalan's critique focuses on three points:
first, humans may by nature be theorizing creatures, making the call for
the abolition of theory impossible in reality; second, Thomas himself cannot
help but fall into the trap of using and relying on the frameworks of theory
to make his argument against theory; and third, Thomas's notion of "the hegemony
of theory" would be more accurately written as "the hegemony of a theory"--that
is, theory is not necessarily the problem, but particular theories are
problematic. In the end, Rajagopalan believes that throwing out theory is
not the most effective way to deal with the increased dependence on theory
in education. Instead, educators must first analytically break down theories
to prevent individual theories from being used as the basis for sweeping
educational assertions, and then "push a number of theories to flourish and
proliferate, trying to make each theory hegemonic."
-by Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr. and Richard R. Valencia
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which brought an end to the Mexican American
War of 1846-1848, marked its sesquicentennial on February 2, 1998. The signing
of the Treaty and the U.S. annexation, by conquest, of the current Southwest
signaled the beginning of decades of persistent, pervasive prejudice and
discrimination against people of Mexican origin who reside in the United
States. In this article, Guadalupe San Miguel and Richard Valencia provide
a sweep through 150 years of Mexican American schooling in the Southwest.
They focus on the educational "plight" (e.g., forced school segregation,
curricular tracking), as well as the "struggle" (e.g., litigation) mounted
by the Mexican American people in their quest for educational equality. The
authors cover four major historical eras: 1) the origins of schooling for
Mexican children in the "American" Southwest, 1848-1890s; 2) the expansion
of Mexican American education, 1890-1930; 3) the changing character of public
education, 1930-1960; and 4) the contemporary period. In their discussion
they identify a number of major themes that characterize the education of
Mexican Americans in the Southwest from the time of the Treaty up to the
Hopwood decision in Texas--the landmark case that gutted affirmative action
in higher education. These include the exclusion and removal of the
Mexican-origin community and its cultural heritage from the schools; the
formation of the template (segregated, inferior schooling) for Mexican American
education; the quest for educational equality; the continuing academic gap
between Mexican American and Anglo or White students; and the impact of nativism
on educational opportunity, as reflected most recently in the regressive
and oppressive voter-initiated propositions in California and in the legal
decisions in Texas. As such, Mexican Americans face an educational crisis
of an unprecedented magnitude in the history of racial/ethnic minority
education.
-by Simon Hole
In this article, Simon Hole uses the metaphor of the teacher as rain dancer
to explore some aspects of the nature of being a teacher. Hole observes his
teaching partner as she attempts to help her class democratically elect reporters
for a school newsletter. A dilemma emerges when her desire to satisfy one
student's interest in this position collides with her goal for the class
to elect the reporters democratically. Hole uses his telling of this dilemma
to provoke conversation among his colleagues about the tensions inherent
in trying to meet conflicting classroom needs. Reflecting on his colleagues'
dilemmas and responses to them, he raises the question of whose needs are
being met in the classroom--teachers' or students'. Hole considers a moment
in his own practice when he feels acutely the tension created by facing a
choice between pursuing his students' agendas and his own.
Antonia Pantoja is an important activist and educator in the Puerto Rican
community, both on the Island and in the United States. Pantoja was interviewed
for the Harvard Educational Review by Wilhelmina Perry, an African
American educator who has known Pantoja for the last twenty years as a colleague,
friend, and coworker. This interview is part of a dialogue around the significant
issues of Pantoja's life that reflect her life's work resisting the colonization
of the Puerto Rican community. Through Pantoja's memories we are provided
with the early and personal experiences that shaped her political and social
commitments in her struggle against injustice. Pantoja's contribution to
this Symposium brings in a unique voice of a Puerto Rican woman committed
to her people.
by Susan Follett Lusi.
New York: Teachers College Press, 1997. 217 pp. $54.00; $24.95 (paper).
Reforming schools in the United States acquired a new meaning with the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983. Two kinds of reform efforts followed, sometimes referred to as the first and second waves of reform. During the first wave, state legislatures and state departments of education (SDEs) became more proactive in the school reform process, initially by issuing new edicts regarding graduation requirements and instituting new testing of teachers and students. Later in the 1980s and early 1990s, the second wave of reform focused on "restructuring." For example, schools were encouraged to change the way they organized themselves for the purpose of improving teaching and learning.
In response to policymakers' observations that neither of these reform strategies (the first characterized by top-down mandates, the second by bottom-up, school-by-school structural change) resulted in widespread improvements in teaching and learning, reformers in the 1990s have argued for a more systemic approach to school improvement, which some have called the "third wave." As author Susan Follett Lusi puts it:
Systemic school reform differs from the reform attempts of the 1980s in at least two important ways. First, systemic school reform strives to reform the education system as a system; it works for coherence across the system's component policies, something that the piecemeal reforms of the past did not achieve.
Second, systemic school reform explicitly strives to support school-site efforts at redesigning teaching and learning with the goal that all students will learn ambitious content knowledge and higher-order skills (Smith & O'Day, 1990). It is insufficient to promulgate mandates such as increased graduation requirements from the "top" of the education system (the state). The "bottom" of the system (schools and districts) must be supported and activated to transform teaching and learning. (p. 6)
Current proponents of systemic reform believe that their vision combines the best of both the "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches of the first two waves of reform. Lusi calls this statewide systemic effort a "complex reform," which she defines as a state department of education reorganizing itself to support the transformation of teaching and learning in local schools.
In order to explain the role of SDEs in complex reform, Lusi uses a case-study approach in her book, examining two states (Kentucky and Vermont) and their SDEs that are in the midst of a complex reform effort. Then in a cross-case analysis, Lusi draws some conclusions and makes several recommendations for other SDEs that may be considering a statewide systemic reform.
In Kentucky, Lusi finds puzzling contradictions. The Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) requires that schools focus on student learning outcomes. To support this, KERA abolished the existing state department of education and required that a totally new department be organized for the purpose of supporting districts and schools in changing their focus. However, this new department is still organized and still functions in a hierarchical, top-down, manner. Furthermore, the focus on the relationship between the new department, on the one hand, and districts and schools on the other is in compliance with KERA and adheres to its timelines. In addition, the department is subject to pressure from the legislature to adhere closely to KERA's mandates and timelines. Given this legislative pressure for compliance with KERA, Lusi is pessimistic that the department of education will be able to recreate itself in a way that will support the spirit of KERA; that is, focusing on student learning in local schools, rather than on legislating management deadlines.
In Vermont, Lusi finds the SDE progressing along the continuum from an old-style hierarchical organization toward a new structure of teaming around the various functions of the department. The SDE is also moving along a similar continuum from a traditional school approval process based on school inputs (for example, having a minimum number of books in the library) toward a new process of supporting local capacity-building for continuous improvement. Lusi notes that the SDE is about midway along both these continua. This leaves the department personnel feeling at times suspended between the old and the new. It is still unclear whether the department will continue moving forward or slide back into the old ways.
Kentucky and Vermont present quite different contexts in which to examine the role of an SDE in complex reform. Kentucky's history of state involvement in education contrasts sharply with Vermont's history of strong local control. Kentucky's reform was court mandated and legislature designed, whereas Vermont's was built by consensus using a process of citizen and educator involvement in the reform's design.
In analyzing the experience of these two states in light of these contexts, Lusi derives a set of seven recommendations for state policymakers to consider in preparing for systemic school reform. The first and most logical is that an SDE needs to model the intended values, norms, and goals of a reform effort, both in its internal operation and in its implementation strategies. This is also likely the most difficult of Lusi's recommendations for an SDE to follow. Among the other six recommendations is an important suggestion regarding the relevance of supporting the creation of local capacity for change, along with an emphasis on knowing the necessity of the SDE's local districts well so state officials can design administrative reforms that fit local school contexts in a supportive way.
Lusi's case study should be of interest to anyone active in improving schools, including policymakers, educators, and concerned citizens.
B.N.
Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives
edited by Eric A. Hanushek and Dale W. Jorgenson.
Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1996. 268 pp. $49.95.
Improving America's Schools is a compilation of papers presented at a 1994 conference that examined the problem of improving performance in our nation's schools from an economic perspective. Much economic theory is predicated on the hypothesis that people are individual actors who choose their behavior to maximize benefits for themselves. Within this framework, it becomes imperative for policymakers to determine which incentives are currently working within the educational system, to assess their impact, and to explore how they can be altered to improve our educational performance. Improving America's Schools does much more than present a single issue or viewpoint. It includes articles that highlight the limitations of economic research, as well as its potential contributions. It explores various reform initiatives that use practical incentives: school finance reform, school-based management, assessment, accountability, and staffing. Within these subjects, authors challenge one another as well as educational issues, present new ideas, and help to establish an alternative line of inquiry into the educational policy debate. While educational economists have been around for a long time, few have used their knowledge to inform educational policy debates. This publication hopes "to initiate a serious intellectual debate over education policy by supplying a new, and previously absent, economic dimension" (p. vii).
Marshall Smith, Brett W. Scholl, and Jeffrey Link begin this volume with an analysis of school reform research.1 Based on their findings, they propose systemic school reform. The major tenet of their proposal is that reform efforts generally fail because all of the pieces needed to move reform forward are not aligned. If reformers can develop policies that combine philosophy, funding, and methods to achieve a set of agreed-upon outcomes, they are much more likely to achieve their goals. The evidence Smith, Scholl, and Link offer to support their plan includes research from education, psychology, sociology, and political science, but not economic research on school performance. They make the argument that most economic research relies too heavily on data that do not capture the essentials of schooling.
In contrast, Eric Hanushek defends the use of economic data and methods in the study of education, and presents examples of how this line of analysis can be used. In "Outcomes, Cost, and Incentives in Schools," Hanushek argues that school change is motivated in large part by economic issues (such as socioeconomic disparities between different racial groups), and that by excluding economic analysis from mainstream discourse we miss essential information about how we are distributing educational resources to our children. To illustrate this point, Hanushek presents data that show that since World War II educational spending has increased, while the returns on this expenditure have not. Drawing on past papers and current data, he concludes that money is not being spent efficiently in the U.S. educational system, and presents recommendations for aligning incentives with measurable outcomes to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of schooling. Smith et al.'s and Hanushek's papers present the core conflict in this volume, highlighting the differences between the conclusions reached from economic and non-economic analysis in education.
The other articles present the varied uses of information that economic analysis and the exploration of incentives can provide policymakers. Brooks Pierce and Finis Welch explore the changes in the U.S. returns to schools, and how those returns have changed across educational levels over the past thirty years. Anita Summers, Amy Johnson, and Jane Hannaway explore the effects of incentives on decentralization and school-based management plans. John Bishop includes a cross-cultural comparison of signaling, incentives, and school organization in France, the Netherlands, Britain, and the United States. Assessment, measurement of outcomes, and the effects of public school partnerships are also explored in three articles by Daniel Koretz, Robert Meyer, and Rebecca Maenad and Meredith Kelsey. The economics of school reform for poor and at-risk students is presented by Henry Levin, and Richard Murnane looks at the economic obstacles to staffing schools with skilled teachers.
Each of these articles fills in a piece of the school reform puzzle and does so using strong economic analysis. This volume manages to make the argument for using economic data and methods in education policy decisions, while providing a broad spectrum of examples for readers.
J.Y.
Broderbund Software, 1996. $19.95.
There is no shortage of computer games in America. A simple walk around your local computer, book, record, or toy store will easily confirm this. The daunting problem for most parents is finding a game that is both entertaining and educational for adult and child alike. These games do exist and have proliferated following the advent of relatively inexpensive personal computers and widely available CD-ROM technology. This new breed of computer game, which entertains and addresses specific learning objectives, has the general benefits of increasing a child's familiarity with computers, improving fine motor control, providing opportunities for immediate feedback, and generally allowing a variety of learning experiences. Orly's Draw-A-Story is a prime example of this new breed of computer game that incorporates all the traditional benefits of "edu-tainment" computer programs while adding outside resource books (including lesson plans) in order to engage parents and child in learning and play. This allows the child, with the help of the parent or teacher, to relate, interpret, and extend the game's virtual experiences into real ones.
Orly's Draw-a-Story is meant for children aged five to ten. The interface is simple to use, colorful to look at, and fun to play. Orly is a young girl from Jamaica who, with a frog named Lancelot, guides the child through four stories, "Ugly Troll People," "The Strange Princess," "Lancelot: Bug-Eater," and "One Big Wish." As Orly tells the story, pictures and places scroll by. At various times during the storytelling, the child is asked to create a drawing using the computer. The child is given the choice of drawing freehand or using countless templates provided by the program. The drawing is then integrated into the narrative itself. Even though the technology is simple, drawing the pictures and then seeing the child's creation integrated seamlessly into the story is both fascinating and enjoyable. The child is engaged in a variety of ways by either drawing, listening, or otherwise interacting with the program. Orly and Lancelot are always there providing encouragement, guidance, and immediate positive feedback.
The stories also reflect the changing landscape of educational programs. Orly's stories hit on themes that, while universal in children's literature, are presented within a Jamaican context, which may be unfamiliar to most U.S. children. Children learn about the culture of Jamaica through these folk tales by participating in educational stories that illustrate the importance of honesty, relationships, and love. They are learning how to operate a computer, as well as engaging in creative fun.
The promise of computer aided learning lies in creativity, guidance, positive feedback, diverse learning experiences, independent learning, and parent-child interactions. It can provide many things that traditional books and experiential learning alone cannot. Orly's Draw-a-Story fulfills this promise and, hopefully, signals more to come.
J.Y.
by Robert B. Reich.
New York: Vintage Books, 1997. 348 pp. $13.00 (paper).
Robert Reich's newest book, Locked in the Cabinet, is more than just another Washington memoir; his writing style and choice of subject matter give Locked in the Cabinet the flavors of plea, confession, and revelation. It is a plea for us to understand why he and the Clinton administration did not complete the agenda they set when they arrived in Washington. It is a confession of his own day-to-day failings, compromises, and victories as a cabinet official, a father, and a husband. And, finally, it is a revelation about the inner workings of government that we so seldom see, and his vision of the problems looming in our economic future. Reich does all of this with a degree of humor and wry wit seldom seen in a political kiss-and-tell memoir. He ranges from composing a one-act play starring Reich and the current head of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan, to describing a dream where Reich is careening down the hills and thrills of a roller-coaster trying to stop "Chainsaw Al" Donlap from downsizing America. But through all the anecdotes and humor, three overriding themes unify the book: the initiation of a political neophyte to the Washington political scene; Reich's battle to bring the growing economic and educational inequality present in today's America to the forefront of political discussion; and the conflict between the desire for public service and the desire for individual happiness.
Locked in the Cabinet begins with an account of Reich's hip replacement surgery, which blurs seamlessly into the Clinton presidential campaign when, from his hospital room, he finds himself dispensing advice about the details of the campaign's economic plan. From there we flash to Reich's first meeting with Clinton on a boat to Oxford in 1968, and end up at his introduction to his wife Claire and an account of their first meeting. All of this occurs within the book's first ten pages. One might expect these rapid-fire accounts to be jarring and leave the reader without a sense of what is going on in the book, but that is not the case. Reich comes back to the strands introduced in these short vignettes, and from these very short, readable, and entertaining scenes weaves a strong, coherent narrative. A good example of his style can be seen in the way he describes his relationship with President Clinton. We first see Clinton through Reich's memory as a "tall, gangly, sweet-faced fellow holding a bowl of chicken soup in one hand and crackers in the other"(p. 4). We then see Clinton as a man capable of asking for the next two months of Reich's life. From these two points--one where the two men are peers, to another where one is capable of asking for the other's complete devotion--Reich goes on to fill in the gaps, to show, through anecdotes and ruminations, how they move from one point to the other, and how that affects the relationship between two people who have known each other for the better part of thirty years. This is a work that lays out the personal and the professional and how they, at times, can be at odds with one another.
In between the nuts and bolts of political relationships and the workings of the government, Reich manages to intersperse his own vision of where America is heading and what he believes we need to do to rectify the growing gap between rich and poor in the United States. He uses statistics and research to highlight his major points: that the income gap between rich and poor is increasing, and, to reduce this gap, we need to invest more in people--not the stock market--through more and better education and training. But his most poignant and persuasive arguments come not from his scholarly work, but from what he has seen and done as Secretary of Labor. Through his eyes we get to see programs that are working and that do make a difference in the lives of individual people. For example, he describes a meeting of young women who are participating in an experimental work program that retrains women to perform jobs traditionally done by men. These women tell their stories of how this program helped them make a living wage so they could feed their children and find decent housing. In stark contrast to this story, Reich describes Al Donlap's slashing and chopping as he acquires companies, downsizes and then resells them, making a huge profit for himself and his stockholders while thousands who have lost their jobs struggle to find work. These stories help to recast the "booming" economy and soaring stock market to show who is really profiting from these conditions and what we need to do in order to help everyone benefit from this time of economic strength.
Having freed himself from the cabinet, Reich emerges to give us "the personal testament of one man's experience during four extraordinary years" (p. xv). For a few hundred pages he lets us feel the weight of his compromises, and see his vision of our educational and economic future.
J.Y.
Journeys of Women in Science and Engineering: No Universal Constants
by Susan A. Ambrose, Kristin L. Dunkle, Barbara B. Lazarus, Indira Nair,
and Deborah A. Harkus.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997. 512 pp. $59.95.
Journeys of Women in Science and Engineering: No Universal Constants is an impressive resource that chronicles the personal profiles of eighty-eight women in science and engineering, in areas ranging from medicine to computers to ecology to aerodynamics. It is of special interest to educators and counselors who want positive role models for their students, as well as to students seeking such support.
The idea of mentoring for girls interested in science and for women who have recently entered the fields of science and engineering has received a great deal of publicity recently. The National Science Foundation and the Association of Women in Science, among others, are supporting various mentoring projects nationwide to help establish this missing support network. When the goal is to provide role models, however, the temptation is to provide a hagiography of women in science and engineering who have simply risen to the heights of achievement in their fields--in essence, offering a roster of women in haloes and a map that all girls and women can simply follow into science and engineering.
This unique collection reveals the humanness of these eighty-eight women and shows that, in this journey, there truly are "no universal constants." Each of these stories and each of these women follows varying trajectories into science and engineering. Nancy Rhoads, for example, was dissuaded by a college counselor from following her dream of pursuing physics and instead earned a degree in French literature. Unsatisfied by her career in that field, Rhoads returned to college and earned her doctorate in aerospace engineering. It could have been tempting to stop here--a woman overcomes all obstacles to get what she has chosen--but the authors do not slide into easy good/bad dichotomies. Instead, they also chronicle the costs of such decisions. Rhoads's life, despite her courageous journey, has not been a one-way journey to success, but, rather, enormously complex and very human, and the authors are careful to make that apparent to readers. As their title suggests, there are no universal constants for women in science, and there are also no easy answers.
Throughout the collection, the authors meet their double objective: to show the "diverse journeys" that women scientists take in life and "the joy of doing the work, the satisfaction of intellectual challenge and achievement, the excitement of discovery, creation, and service, and the fulfillment of a good life's work" (p. 31). They show us and all considering a career in science and engineering honest pictures of the pleasures, the problems, and the price of those choices.
R.G.C.
edited by David J. Flinders and Stephen J. Thornton.
New York: Routledge, 1997. 362 pp. $75.00; $24.99 (paper).
In The Curriculum Studies Reader, David Flinders and Stephen Thornton have collected a series of thirty essays on various aspects of curriculum that will be of interest to all who want to know why we teach what we teach in schools.
In Curriculum Theorizing, William Pinar (1975) reminds us that the word "curriculum" derives from the Latin word "currere," meaning "to run the course." Seen as a process, curriculum then becomes, according to Pinar, "an educational journey or pilgrimage" (p. 400). From this perspective, the work of Flinders and Thornton suggests that curriculum may well be a return trip that takes us back to the point from which we originated. The authors are careful to let us know that, while the context of the inevitable debates over curriculum may change, the underlying arguments remain the same: "What do schools teach, what should they teach, and who should decide? Is the primary aim to foster skills or foster critical thinking? Should education aim to mold future citizens, to engender personal development, or to inspire academic achievement?" (p. vii).
The editors begin the journey with a look at the historical development of curriculum to enable readers "to appreciate the antecedents and changing social contexts in which . . . contemporary traditions are rooted" (p. viii). From the work of Franklin Bobbitt, John Dewey, and George Counts in the early twentieth century, Flinders and Thornton wind through the post-1957 Sputnik era in which many of these earlier curriculum theories were challenged. With essays by John Goodlad, W. James Popham, Elliott Eisner, Lauren Sosniak, Philip Jackson, and Joseph Schwab, the book runs the course into the curriculum age of educational reform, objectives, and curriculum by committee. It was, as Joseph Schwab writes, an age in which education pursued "the art of the practical" and left the "ephemeral bandwagon" (p. 115) of theory behind.
After this leg of the journey, we enter the post-Sputnik period of what Flinders and Thornton call "pondering the curriculum." The essays on this period--by William Pinar, Dwayne Huebner, Maxine Greene, Elliot Eisner, Diane Ravitch, Milbrey McLaughlin, Paulo Friere, Gail McCutcheon, F. M. Connelly, and Miriam Ben-Peretz--deal with the process of reconceptualizing the curriculum from the empiricist approaches of the earlier periods. As the slate of authors indicates, this section includes a variety of perspectives from which this "pondering" emanates, including those of teachers and researchers.
The final section is even more diverse and includes essays that examine contemporary debates and issues such as HIV education, environmental concerns, diversity, educational restructuring, class, race, and gender. The broad diversity suggests, as Flinders and Thornton write, that "each author has his or her agenda" (p. 207). If we look closely enough, however, we can see that the "templates of the past have been retooled to fit the concerns of our present and future possibilities" and that the "perennial questions" of curriculum are still there (p. x). Thanks to Flinders and Thornton, we have come back to them and realize that, as they notify us in their Introduction, "much changes while remaining the same" (p. x).
R.G.C.
First Person, First Peoples: Native American College Graduates Tell Their Life Stories
by Andrew Garrod and Colleen Larimore.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. 248 pp. $15.95 (paper).
In First Person, First Peoples, Andrew Garrod and Colleen Larimore successfully and respectfully present the personal narratives of thirteen Native American students who graduated from Dartmouth College. The students featured in this book represent various tribes, including Navajo, Sioux, Tlingit, Yup'ik, and Native Hawaiian. Interestingly, there has always been a strong and unique Native presence in this elite Ivy League institution. These thirteen Native students share their stories of personal, academic, emotional, cultural, and sociopolitical struggles. They set their narratives in the context of the Native American Program at Dartmouth. Through honest reflection, they discuss the school's commitment to Native studies and issues, its influence on academic success, and its significant impact on their lives beyond the institution.
These courageous narratives directly address issues of internal racism, stereotypes, institutional support, politics of identity, and cultural preservation. As a result, we see evidence of a Native presence in academe as well as the students' obvious contributions not only to their home communities, but also to mainstream America. The narratives fuel academic, political, cultural, and social discussions and debates around such questions as: What does it mean to be educated? What does it mean for Native students to leave home to attend an Ivy League college? What does it mean, despite the challenges of academic survival, to be forced to confront fears, such as loss of cultural and tribal identity and belonging? Despite the mismatch between culture and schooling, it is rare that we see Native individuals transforming a historical discussion about failures into a powerful discussion about resistance, preservation, and cultural survival. While educational researchers have largely focused their inquiries on why Native students fail, Garrod and Larimore have taken a different approach--one that for many in academe is not considered "academic" per se--that consciously creates a forum in which these exceptional individuals can openly share testimonies of their struggle and ultimate success without appearing self-glorifying. Through the students' written reflections, readers can fully appreciate the real experiences, real emotions, and real concerns at the forefront of their experience. No doubt, these narratives will evoke a continuum of emotions: anger, sadness, joy, and warmth. While these stories are placed specifically within the context of Dartmouth College, these individuals' experiences may mirror those of many Native collegeT.YY. students across the United States.
T.Y.
Historical Dictionary of Women's Education in the United States
edited by Linda Eisenmann.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. 520 pp. $95.00.
The Historical Dictionary of Women's Education in the United States by Linda Eisenmann and a staff of 104 historians is the most recent undertaking in the ongoing effort to define and explain women's education in the United States. The dictionary, a user-friendly text that covers a timespan from the colonial period to the present, provides a comprehensive reference tool for scholars, educators, students, and general readers who are interested in women's education and history. In a time when obfuscation is often the rule in academic writing, Eisenmann and her staff have created a dictionary that is remarkably readable and usable by all. The scope of the Historical Dictionary is as broad as its chronology, for it reaches into the fields of philosophy, history, political science, and psychology to accomplish its objective.
That the Historical Dictionary has an objective is certain, since dictionaries and encyclopedias invariably reflect a central idea underlying the inclusion and exclusion of materials. For example, in 1929, Thomas Woody undertook a task similar to Eisenmann's and created A History of Women's Education in the United States, a brilliant compilation of over four thousand bibliographic entries that has informed generations of educators and historians on this topic. The debt that many owe to this earlier work can be seen in Woody's inclusion in Eisenmann's dictionary. Woody chose to emphasize women's "intellectual emancipation" in his work, and his historical tour de force records womens' progress toward that end. Eisenmann works with a similar perspective, announced in her introduction to the Historical Dictionary: "The story of women's education in the United States is a continuous effort to move from the periphery to the mainstream in both formal institutions and informal opportunities" (p. 6). This statement provides the Historical Dictionary's theme and suggests that this work is an extension of Woody's. It shows how the "intellectual emancipation" recorded by Woody was a part of the ongoing process of institution-building in women's education.
Eisenmann writes that the Historical Dictionary used several criteria to select material: geographic, social, and socioeconomic diversity; traditional and alternative educational settings; and emphasis on issues, events, and themes rather than on individuals alone. The latter two criteria are met throughout, as the dictionary includes both formal and informal educational movements, programs, and settings with special emphasis on the issues themselves, rather than the individuals who promoted or worked within them. While there are entries on individuals, they are less biographical discussions than institutional studies of a given individual's role within larger contexts. For example, we learn of formal institutions such as the Seven Sisters colleges, but we also learn of less formal educational opportunities such as the General Federation of Women's Clubs. In keeping with the stated criteria, we learn more about M. Carey Thomas's contributions to women's ongoing "struggle to move from the periphery to the mainstream in both formal institutions and informal opportunities" (p. xi) than we do of her personal history.
However, the goal of geographic and social diversity is less admirably met. The majority of entries deal with upper- and middle-class educated women of the Northeast and African American women. The paucity of entries on issues and movements associated with other socioeconomic and ethnic groups is apparent, and few entries explore women's education and the issues associated with it in the South or West. Despite its stated criteria, the dictionary leans toward duality rather than diversity.
One especially helpful aspect of Eisenmann's work is the use of cross-referencing through bold format of selected words in the text. In each of the Historical Dictionary's 243 entries, other terms that are included in the work are highlighted. By cross-referencing these words or phrases, the reader can explore the social, biographical, and political contexts in which a movement, a program, an institution, or an individual operated. The entry for "suffrage," for example, highlights the terms "temperance," "Seneca Falls," "Declaration of Sentiments," "slavery," and "abolitionist." By referring to these entries, readers can further broaden their understanding of the issue and explore its larger social, historical, and political contexts.
J.P.S.
I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
by Terrence Real
New York: Scribner, 1997. 383 pp. $24.00; $13.00 (paper).
When people think about depression they most often think of women as its victims. Indeed, the manual of psychiatric disorders [DSM-IV] states that women's symptoms fit criteria for major depressive disorders 2 to 1 over men. But a new book by Terrence Real takes another look at this formulation. I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression contends that many men also suffer from depression, but that it takes a more covert form. Real explains that disorders more common among men than women--alcohol abuse, drug dependence, antisocial personality disorder, as well as violent acts such as the battering of women and suicide--may all have depression at their root. Real poses the question, "Why should depression, a disorder of feeling--in psychiatric language, an affective disorder--be handled in the same way by both sexes when most other emotional issues are not?" (p. 23). In fact, Real asserts, men respond in strikingly different ways than women to feelings of despondency and troubling life events.
As Real explores depression in men, he delineates the ways men as children were socialized into "boy culture." During childhood and beyond, boys are often shamed for feelings of vulnerability or desires for intimacy, ways of being that are more readily encouraged for girls and women. To offset this shame, Real describes how boys and men develop coping styles that lean towards narcissism and grandiosity. This allows them to interact with the world and to relate to other people in a manner that preserves their masculine images as powerful, heroic, successful, and invulnerable. The reader is thus led to wrestle with a blurring of our otherwise ordinarily held assumptions of victim and victimizer:
The need to save one's own insecure place in the circle of manhood by participating in oppression, or at the least in remaining silent, while the weak fail is one of the principal dilemmas for boys. . . . Do it to him or he'll do it to you. . . . And the "Sophie's choice" of hammer or nail, victimizer or victim is not relegated to extreme instances. . . . They [boys] learn to betray the humanity in others . . . as a way of protecting themselves, and in so doing they also learn to disconnect from their own compassionate hearts. (p. 174)
We often believe that the victim and the victimizer are two separate beings or, at the very least, two distinct ways of being that do not inhabit a person simultaneously. Given that men are the most significant perpetrators of violence in our society--violence against other men as well as against women--it is a curious notion to think that these men who render such violence against others may themselves be victims of a harsh and unforgiving male culture, leading some men into severe depression.
In understanding these psychological connections between men's inner feelings and outer deeds, while still holding men accountable for their hurtful actions against others, Real offers to readers (as well as to the male patients he sees in clinical practice) a way out of this boyhood bind of "Do it to him or we'll do it to you." By offering compassion to men regarding their shameful feelings, their fears of abandonment, and other hidden fears that they may have tucked in far away places, Real takes a first step in helping men develop a lost compassion for themselves. In turn, this may allow men to fully express that compassion to others. In a society where intense behavioral management, control, and severe punishment are meant to remedy the burgeoning of violent behaviors in young men and little boys, this book inspires us to reconsider that misguided approach. Violence begets violence, while only compassion with accountability can create the possibility of more compassion and open a way for men to talk about what they don't want to talk about--thus beginning the process of healing for all.
H.S.G.
Randomized Experiments for Planning and Evaluation: A Practical Guide
by Robert R. Boruch
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997. 263 pp. $21.95 (paper).
How can education policymakers evaluate whether a new program has its intended consequences for its target population? In Randomized Experiments for Planning and Evaluation, Boruch uses scores of examples from education and other social science fields to show how carefully designed field trials can answer this question. Through these examples, he describes in detail the necessary steps in the design of a good field trial, from the initial framing of the questions to the final interpreting and reporting of the results.
Boruch's excellent chapter on the ethics of field trials ("Ethics, Law, and Randomized Experiments") provides much to consider, especially for those who have an aversion to "experimenting with people." For example, in the medical field, an analysis of carefully designed field trials revealed that about 20 percent of new therapies improve patient outcomes, 20 percent are worse than the standard treatment, and the remaining 60 percent perform about the same as the standard treatment (p. 69, quoting Gilbert, McPeck, & Mosteller, 1977). Yet the creators of these new therapies were certain that they would improve patient outcomes. A similar study in the social sciences found that 35 percent of the new programs succeed relative to the control groups, 20 percent fail, and the balance shows no difference (p. 69, quoting Gordon & Morse, 1975). Concluding this chapter on the ethics of field trials, Boruch states:
A related stream of relevant empirical work over the last 15 years suggests that nothing improves the chances of apparently successful innovation as much as lack of experimental control. Marked enthusiasm for an innovation is negligible in reports on controlled trials. Declarations that a program is successful are about four times more likely in research based on poor or questionable evaluation designs as in that based on adequate ones. . . . Badly designed research can yield misleading results and is ethically unacceptable on that account. (p. 69)
Educators may reasonably ask themselves whether the evaluations of the innovations they are asked to implement or the curricular materials they are told to use have been well designed, as well as whether the results have been interpreted without bias. These questions are especially important to ask of commercially available innovations, programs, or curricular materials and textbooks, where their vendors, who have an obvious self-interest, try to demonstrate that their product really works to improve schooling for our students. And yet, how many school or district decisionmakers are inclined to ask this question and have the knowledge to evaluate the answer? For this reason, Boruch's practical guide can be a valuable addition to the library of every department chair, principal, and superintendent.
This clearly written text with its extensive use of examples of successfully implemented evaluations in the social sciences promises to become the successor to the existing venerable texts on the design of field trials and evaluations.
B.N.
1 Marshall S. Smith is the U.S. Undersecretary for Education and former dean of the Stanford School of Education; Brett Scholl and Jeffrey Link are associates working at the U.S. Department of Education.