by Frank Javier Garcia Berumen.

New York: Vantage Press, 1995. 271 pp. $18.95.

In The Chicano/Hispanic Image in American Film, educator and historian Frank Javier Garcia Berumen analyzes the portrayal of Chicanos, Mexicans, and other people of Hispanic heritage in American movies, particularly those developed and released by Hollywood. As both a teacher of American history and an avid movie buff, Garcia Berumen argues that educators teaching American history require a clear understanding of the ways in which political, racial, linguistic, and other types of bias influence the portrayal of Chicanos and other Hispanics in American film. Garcia Berumen is particularly concerned with the connections between the education of Chicanos and Hispanics and the negative images projected of them in film and related media (TV, videos, etc.). Building on his experiences as a professional educator who is also Hispanic, Garcia Berumen's book is an effort to analyze the significance, and the pervasiveness, of negative images of the Chicano/Hispanic in American film. Ultimately, Garcia Berumen hopes that the reader will comprehend how such powerful and consistent messages evident in American films influence all filmgoers' understandings of the role of Chicanos/Hispanics in American history. In addition, Garcia Berumen's book begins to inquire into the extent of the impact of negative stereotypes and images on Chicanos' and other Hispanics' sense of self within a historical context, and of how this ultimately affects educational attainment. In his words, "education remains the most important issue facing the Hispanic community as statistics reveal a dismal picture across all levels: elementary, secondary, and postsecondary" (p. 224). As yet another generation of Chicanos and Hispanics is subjected to negative, incorrect, and potentially damaging stereotypes, Garcia Berumen offers this book, as comprehensive in its range as in its level of detail, that examines how the economic, political, and social dimensions of American society, in particular racial and ethnic stereotypes, shape the images of the Chicano and Hispanic in visual media like television and films.

Garcia Berumen begins his review of the history of the Chicano/Hispanic image on screen with the first movie to deal with Hispanic culture - a rather obscure nickelodeon short about a Mexican bullfight released in 1896 during the silent screen era - and then works up through the present. In each chapter, Garcia Berumen demonstrates the power of the dominant political and social contexts of the times, and how each of these contexts influenced movies and television images, particularly the portrayal of the Chicano and the Hispanic peoples and their cultures.In his introduction, Garcia Berumen explains that the purpose of his book is to "chronicle the portrayal of the Chicano and Hispanic in American film" (p. xi). He assesses the portrayal of the Latin American experience in American film, noting that Chicanos and other Hispanics "generally underwent the same and identical fate of stereotyping" (p. xi). He reviews the history of the United States as it expanded into the West, and of the Spanish expansion into Mexico and what is now the western half of the United States. By detailing the Manifest Destiny ideology behind U.S. geographical and economic expansions, Garcia Berumen illuminates the sociopolitical and economic effects of the conquest of the Mexican and Native American peoples. In the context of peoples dispossessed of land, legal rights, and political power, Garcia Berumen traces the development of cinematic practice around the predominant societal mores and governmental policy of the times. In such a context, "racism and prejudice festered and flourished, and people of darker skins were the primary victims: Hispanics, Blacks, American Indians, Asians" (p. xiii). He continues,

If art reflects life, then the American film reflected the prevailing images of people of color within the context of the times, periodically racist and frequently stereotypical. Thus, the Hispanic was inevitably portrayed as lazy, unintelligent, greasy, criminal, and "foreign." Their contributions culturally, economically, and historically were never properly documented or appreciated. History was revised to suit the public's conceptual whim and fancy with the minimum of historical accuracy. (p. xiii)

Garcia Berumen argues that throughout each decade of this century, "issues or concerns of Hispanics in this country were not addressed, or the films dealt with them in only a handful of exceptions" (p. xiii-xiv). He shows that the portrayal of Chicanos and Hispanics in film mirrors the image of them fostered by the media (e.g., poor, ignorant, immigrant bandit), as well as their relationship to the dominant society vis-a-vis their political, economic, and social status. Hollywood filmmakers shared these stereotypes and were not adverse to making them known to the public through their films. Garcia Berumen points out that even though Hollywood filmmakers stopped the practice of using Anglos to portray Blacks and Asians on screen long ago, Anglos have continued to portray Chicanos and Hispanics into the contemporary era. Throughout the films of this century, and even in those of the late 1800s, actors, writers, and directors often brought their personal prejudices to their work, which, when combined with general ignorance about Chicanos and Hispanics, created

a screen world of cultural inaccuracies and stereotypes: sombreros and serape-draped Mexicans taking siestas on sidewalks; Mexicans consuming only the three diet staples of chile, tacos, and liquor; the Hispanic inevitably seeking political and social guidance, acceptance, and "enlightenment" of the Anglo. (p. xiv)

Garcia Berumen believes that the negative stereotypes portrayed in these predictable and permanent images of waiters, bandits, Latin lovers, prostitutes, gang members, and drug dealers - people generally incapable of thinking for themselves - were and are most destructive in that they provide no positive role models for young Chicanos and Hispanics who aspire to the American dream. A key element of that dream is access to - and success in - education.

Garcia Berumen's work unites his two main personal and professional interests: the cinema and education. In The Chicano/Hispanic Image in American Film, he relates his own experience growing up, and explains his beliefs about understanding and teaching history. His childhood was spent primarily in East Los Angeles, speaking Spanish and going to the movies with his parents. He traveled between Mexico and the United States with his parents, observing the contrast between the positive roles and attitudes Chicano/Hispanic protagonists were given in Mexican films, and the negative stereotypes of the roles they were given in American movies. Even as a child, Garcia Berumen observed that when he saw Chicanos/Hispanics - reflections of himself and people like his family and friends - in American movies, the images were degraded and demeaning. Later, he began to understand that stark contrasts between North American and Mexican social attitudes allowed such different presentations of the same people to be perpetuated in American films.

At the age of eleven, Garcia Berumen noticed that he and his siblings began doing poorly in school. He attributes this change in school performance to what he perceived as low self-esteem, and a corresponding identity crisis. Like his siblings, he began to feel ashamed of his cultural heritage, socioeconomic class, race, and language. He and his siblings began to refuse to speak Spanish and to have conflicting feelings about their identity. When his parents became aware of this, they decided to take their children to Mexico for the summers to be in contact with Mexican relatives and, more importantly, with their culture. It was during the first of these trips to Mexico that Garcia Berumen saw that Mexican people were professional, articulate, educated, "normal" people with a legitimate source of income and a sense of who they were. He began to discover his rich cultural and historic heritage, and to compare it with the distorted history presented to him in everything from American television and movies to the images available to those his age through instructional curricula and textbooks at school. Garcia Berumen's life work as a teacher of young, predominantly Chicano/Hispanic students in East Los Angeles has been committed to informing them about their own history so that they may compare it to the revisionist versions they see in the movies and in their educational institutions and texts. In this way, he hopes to help Chicano/Hispanics resist the negative images prevalent in American society and the tendency of U.S. films to fracture their identity, both of which contribute to their feelings of worthlessness and academic failure. In Garcia Berumen's view, "if education doesn't contribute to students' self-esteem, you lose 'em" (personal communication, May 1996). His book is an attempt to help Chicanos/Hispanics and others understand how and why Chicano/Hispanic identity is reflected in film and similar media, to enable them to cope better with and contribute to improving a society that is still replete with negative - and potentially destructive - media images of Chicanos/Hispanics.

Garcia Berumen's book reviews the images portrayed in history and in the present from the perspective and experiences of a person who is Chicano/Hispanic. Instead of simply summarizing and presenting the types of Chicano/Hispanic images put forth in Hollywood films, however, he seeks to understand the connection between these and the real-life experiences of a person of such descent, relating the images to their impact on his, and others', sense of self-worth and history. In Garcia Berumen's view, more accurate renditions of history allow the people to see themselves as they were and are, not as openly racist filmmakers choose to portray them. The Chicano/Hispanic Image in American Film is a first step in the direction of film criticism that makes plain the economic, political, and social background of popular films in their creation of racist myths and stereotypes based on the Chicano/Hispanic image. He moves beyond a simple reading of film images as they appear on screen to explain to the reader some of the factors involved with why those images appear as they do.

As a resource, The Chicano/Hispanic Image in American Film is an essential tool for anyone studying or teaching the history of the United States. Such a text is even more crucial now that educators enable their students to interrogate and scrutinize images that are supposed to represent them or others who are also members of the American community. In the era of "critical pedagogy," "critical theory," and "revisionist history" we need resources that are able to tie together many of the strands that constitute American history. In particular, we need researchers who are able to make connections between aspects of American life that sometimes seem disparate, like images of gangsters on TV and low school achievement. Today, increasing numbers of young people spend more time viewing television and movies than ever before. Undoubtedly, those who watch will internalize the stereotypes they constantly see that reflect, and are reflective of, the cultural and political biases that shaped and continue to shape the Chicano and Hispanic image in American film. We look forward to an upcoming book by Garcia Berumen, which will focus more closely on the relationship between Chicano/Latino images in American film and school achievement. While The Chicano/Hispanic Image in American Film is only a beginning in terms of understanding the history of Chicanos and Hispanics in film and similar media, it is a beginning worth reading.

by Philip Gleason.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. 434 pp. $ 35.00.

Philip Gleason's interesting history of American Catholic higher education reveals the extent of organizational and ideological change that has taken place in Catholic universities and colleges since the turn of the century. Writing from what he refers to as an "internalist" perspective, Gleason describes the transformation of Catholic universities in the context of the emergence of the modern American university, two World Wars, and the social and political upheavals of the 1960s. His narrative draws us into the Catholic religious and intellectual debate and the controversy that surrounded the founding and growth of such well-known institutions as Georgetown, Notre Dame, Fordham, and Catholic University of America. Gleason reveals how Catholic educators and intellectuals in the United States made the transition from a "cold war" struggle that challenged modernity to an accommodation and acceptance of modernity. He invites us to consider how that transition influenced the growth of research and graduate training, university prestige, curriculum and classroom instruction, student activism, and academic freedom for faculty.

In Part One of Contending with Modernity, Gleason outlines the organizational "revolution" that arose at the turn of the century in response to both Catholics' aspirations for economic and social mobility and to competition from rapidly developing and, in the public mind, "superior" public high schools and state universities. Catholic educational reformers developed a comprehensive professional association, the Catholic Education Association (CEA), to address the extensive institutional fragmentation that some Catholic observers described as similar to a "boiler explosion" (p. 39). These educators fundamentally reformed the articulation between secondary schools and colleges, clarified the relation between colleges and universities, and, stimulated by progressive developments during and after World War I, established principles of accreditation in line with national norms, as well as ideals of research and faculty dedication to scholarship.

In Part Two, Gleason turns to ideological challenges. Here he describes the congruence between conservatism in Catholic higher education and the intellectual revival of scholastic philosophy and theology. The nineteenth-century "Scholastic Revival" was built primarily on the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and held that the evils of the modern world had their origins in the misuse of human reason as a system of thought. Gleason argues that subsequently, between World War I and Vatican II, neoscholasticism, supported through organizational modernization, dominated and shaped teaching, curriculum, and intellectual life in Catholic higher education. This developmental movement raised educators' hopes that they could create within their colleges and universities a culture that would overcome the flaws of secularism and the culture of modernity. This was "a period in which Catholics challenged modernity by proposing an integrally Catholic culture as a superior alternative" (p. 114). Colleges and universities became centers for the diffusion of this countercultural perspective among Catholics and in American public life (p. 146).

In Part Three, Gleason asserts that Catholic educators of the thirties were convinced that advanced study and research could continue to grow within the framework of a Catholic worldview. But Catholic involvement with secular agencies during World War II and participation in the organization of federally sponsored research "reinforced the assimilative tendencies that had long been at work in their adjustment to prevailing norms in educational practice and in other more subtle ways" (p. 215). As one example of this "assimilative force," Gleason describes how organizational innovation and ideals of professional autonomy eventually reached the training of the teaching sisterhood, "the most religiously withdrawn segment of the Catholic educational world" (p. 232). Nevertheless, Catholic educators continued the challenge to modernity unabated into the 1940s and 1950s. This challenge found expression in critiques of scientific naturalism, reaffirmation of agitation against birth control, involvement of the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae in Legion of Decency film boycotts, and the suppression of academic freedom.

Gleason concludes his narrative with the transition to a new "Era." As reasons for the shift, he names an emergent Americanism (an enthusiasm for national values) among younger scholars, increased Catholic receptivity to charges of anti-intellectualism, "backwardness" and ghetto mentality in Catholic higher education, and the dismissal of a dessicated and formalistic Thomism (St. Thomas Aquinas's scholastic system) as the center of liberal arts education. Turning points include the defeat of a speakers' ban at the Catholic University of America in 1963 and academic freedom cases at St. John's University, the University of Dayton, and Catholic University of America (the Curran tenure case). Freedom manifested itself in the laicization of boards of trustees and the "Land O' Lakes Statement" proclaiming that a Catholic university must enjoy "true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself" (p. 317). Thus, according to this author, we have witnessed the end of an era. Gleason writes, "Although the dust has still not fully settled, it was clear from an early date that the old ideological structure of Catholic higher education, which was already under severe strain, had been swept away entirely" (p. 305).

This is not, however, the final chapter in Gleason's story. That chapter, he suggests, is yet to be written by Catholic educators. Their challenge now is

[the] lack of consensus as to the substantive content of the ensemble of religious beliefs, moral commitments, and academic assumptions that supposedly constitute Catholic identity, and a consequent inability to specify what that identity entails for the practical functioning of a Catholic colleges and universities. (p. 320)

The question Catholic educators have yet to answer as our century closes is whether they will be able to forge and build upon a new rationale for their existence as a distinctive element in American higher education.

by Eben A. Weitzman and Matthew B. Miles.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995. 369 pp. $31.50 (paper).

Qualitative researchers in education often find themselves working with hundreds or even thousands of pages of qualitative data. In the course of a single research project, data sources such as field notes, interview transcripts, and primary and secondary documents can readily yield enormous amounts of text, presenting the researcher with the challenge of managing and making sense of so much information.In recent years, several powerful software applications have been created that can help qualitative researchers organize and work flexibly with large collections of text-based data. Specifically designed for working with words and ideas, these specialized tools allow for point-and-click coding, searches by keyword or code, instant sorting, and easy retrieval of selected passages. This new generation of computer technology for qualitative data analysis represents an order-of-magnitude improvement over older cut-and-paste methods relying on scissors, tape, highlighter pens, and index cards.

Imagine, for example, that you are working on a qualitative research project with enough data to fill an entire file cabinet. Using a typical organizational strategy, you might place your individual documents into manila folders, arrange those manila folders in hanging folders, and then put the hanging folders into the drawers of the file cabinet. Your data is accessible, but when the time arrives for data analysis, you face the task of remembering all the data that might pertain to a particular research question, figuring out where you put those documents, making photocopies of those files, coding the appropriate passages with highlighters, physically placing the coded documents next to one another, and then making sense of it all as it literally surrounds you.

Alternatively, you could convert the entire set of documents into a single full-text computer database. Then, with the assistance of a specialized application for qualitative data analysis, you could use your computer to instantly retrieve, search, code, or sort any phrase on any page of any document - and the entire database could be saved on a disk that fits into your coat pocket.

For those interested in finding a computer application well-suited for their own qualitative research or just learning more about the capabilities of the latest generation of computer software designed for working with text, Computer Programs for Qualitative Data Analysis by Eben Weitzman and Matthew Miles probably represents the best single investment they can make. Good comparative information on computer programs for qualitative research has generally been hard to find. Many of these applications have been created by individuals and small firms around the United States and the world rather than large software corporations; just figuring out what applications exist or how to place an order for a specific program can turn out to be a major challenge. Furthermore, the literature about the various computer applications has tended to be descriptive rather than analytical, and often comes from the software publishers themselves, who naturally have a vested interest in presenting their product in the best possible light.

In Computer Programs for Qualitative Data Analysis, Weitzman and Miles change all this by providing a critical, in-depth look at twenty-four separate applications. The authors make an impressive team: Weitzman is a professor of social and organizational psychology with an extensive computer background, and Miles is a social psychologist who is well-known in the field of qualitative research for coauthoring a popular book on qualitative data analysis with Michael Huberman.1 Together, the two researchers have produced an informative, user-friendly sourcebook that can save readers a significant amount of time and money when shopping for a software program for qualitative data analysis.Weitzman and Miles clearly put a tremendous amount of work into Computer Programs for Qualitative Data Analysis; they write their reviews of each application in remarkably lucid and jargon-free language in a format reminiscent of Consumer Reports. The level of detail in the reviews reflects their careful and thoughtful field-testing of all twenty-four software programs. Reviews average about ten pages each and actually show you what each application can do, and every review includes a series of realistic visuals (complete with helpful captions) that display what the computer screen looks like when performing various functions with that specific computer program. In addition to describing the special features of each computer program, Weitzman and Miles discuss the strengths and weaknesses of every application and make explicit comparisons with other applications in the same "family." Based on type and function, they place each of the twenty-four programs into one of five categories: text retrievers, textbase managers, code-and-retrieve programs, code-based theory-builders, and conceptual network-builders.

Each review features complete ordering information, including addresses, phone numbers, and price. Software prices range from $25 to over $1,000; most cost between $100 and $400. Students and faculty members should be happy to learn that many companies offer substantial discounts for educators.

Sage Publications deserves special credit for their role in publishing Computer Programs for Qualitative Data Analysis. Instead of issuing this book in hardcover and attaching a hefty price tag, they released it as an oversized (8-by-11-inch) paperback and made this valuable information available at a modest cost. Computer Programs for Qualitative Data Analysis is the most comprehensive resource on its subject currently available, and is an excellent starting point for qualitative researchers interested in integrating computer technology more fully into their own data analysis strategies.

by Matthew Parynik Mendel.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995. 239 pp. $19.50 (paper).

The topic of male sexual abuse is rarely identified or addressed by researchers, clinicians, and the public at large. In The Male Survivor: The Impact of Sexual Abuse, Matthew Parynik Mendel, a clinical psychologist and researcher, explores both why this is so and how child sexual abuse affects the lives of men.

The author argues that we, as a society, are "primed and ready to recognize male perpetrators but turn a blind eye to male victims" (p. 4). He draws on research that indicates that boys are more likely to be referred for counseling on the basis of having initiated sexually inappropriate behaviors, rather than as victims of such behaviors, and that a sexually abused young male is most often identified after a sexually abused female sibling has been identified. The author explains that clinicians and educators are more likely to label troublesome boys as hyperactive, oppositional-defiant, conduct disordered, or attention-deficit disordered, rather than considering that these boys may be suffering from the aftermath or ongoing consequences of sexual abuse.

The author describes various factors contributing to the under-identification of male sexual abuse and explores the effects of this underidentification on male survivors, asserting that the experience of victimization is antithetical to notions of masculinity that deem men to be "powerful, active, competent" and in control (p. 16). Feelings of helplessness, lack of control, and humiliation can be threatening to a young man's developing sense of masculinity. This threat may lead to the denial of sexual abuse by males, which is furthered by the myth that males are "eternally sexually willing and eager, at least with female partners" (p. 17). A young man sexually abused by a female may question his masculinity, wondering why he did not enjoy the sexual encounter. If he is a heterosexual male, he may come to question his sexual identity.

Confusion about sexual identity may also develop, since some boys become aroused during sexual abuse by a man despite their lack of complicity in the act. This experience may lead a heterosexual young man to question his sexual identity. In a homophobic culture, the fear of identifying oneself or being identified by another as homosexual leads some males to fail to report their abuse. These experiences add further shame to males' experiences of having been sexually abused.

In chapter three, the author draws on descriptive statistics to analyze the prevalence and characteristics of male sexual abuse in the United States. In chapter four, he describes the impact of sexual abuse in general, and in chapter five, he discusses the impact of sexual abuse specific to males. The remainder of the book is a presentation of Mendel's original research, in which he surveyed 124 men who self-identified as having experienced sexual abuse as children. His survey explores the relationship between characteristics of a boy's childhood sexual abuse experience and his adult psychosocial functioning. Such characteristics include duration, severity, and age of onset of the abuse, and whether the sexual abuse was coupled with further physical abuse. In addition, the study assesses the effect on the adult male survivor of the perpetrator's gender, drug-abuse history, familial relationship, and the number of perpetrators endured by the boy. Of particular interest, Mendel found that the severity of the abuse predicted traumatic symptomatology, whereas extended duration of the abuse predicted low self-worth in the adult male survivor. In addition, early onset of abuse correlated with a malevolent worldview. This latter finding may be interpreted as evidence that sexual abuse interweaves itself with a boy's development by interfering with the growth of his self-esteem. Also, this study revealed that men who were subjected to physical abuse as well as sexual abuse as boys were far more likely to attempt suicide than those men who did not experience physical abuse as children.

In order to gain a deeper understanding of the impact that childhood sexual abuse had on these men's lives, Mendel also conducted nine semi-structured interviews. The case history vignettes of these nine men are interspersed throughout the book.

One of Mendel's motivations in writing this book, an extension of his dissertation, is to help reduce the stigma associated with the sexual abuse of males. I believe he is successful in this effort. This book confronts unashamedly the issues and consequences of male sexual abuse in the United States. It offers a platform upon which readers can deepen their understanding of and compassion for adult men who have experienced sexual abuse as boys. By bringing awareness to this issue, the author invites childhood educators, researchers, and clinicians who work with boys and men to further investigate how sexual and physical abuse affects boys' childhood development and how this results in the struggles some men experience in their adult lives. Mendel thanks the men in this study for their courage in sharing their stories. I would like to extend this gratitude to the author for his courage in taking on this crucial topic.

by Robert Kegan.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. 396 pp. $29.95; $15.95 (paper).

In his previous book, The Evolving Self (1982), Robert Kegan elaborated a theory of the "evolution of consciousness" in which he attended to the development of meaning making throughout the lifespan. In his most recent book, In Over Our Heads, Kegan draws upon the theoretical framework presented in The Evolving Self to examine the quality of fit between the developmental demands of modern culture and the actual developmental capacities of adolescents and adults. In essence, Kegan claims that there is a misfit - that is, modern culture makes a claim upon the minds of most adolescents and adults of which they are not yet capable. Furthermore, Kegan contends that while the cultural curriculum generously offers extensive challenges to adults and adolescents in all arenas of their lives - partnering, parenting, working, learning - what seems to be lacking are the necessary supports that would enable them to embrace such challenges. According to Kegan, the danger of this misfit is found both in the individual's experience of himself or herself in relationship to a cultural curriculum that exceeds one's mental capacities and in the perception held by others, such as one's partner, boss, teacher, therapist, or parent, of the individual's behavior or feelings in the face of such a challenge. Kegan claims that there is a tendency in our "culture as school" to view the individual who is unable to meet the demands of the cultural curriculum as "a loser, an incompetent person, and one who by reason of stubbornness, inability or illness, is unable to come through for us, evoking our pity or hostility" (p. 38). Kegan warns the reader of the dangers of a "culture as school" that simultaneously criticizes or belittles the individual who is unable to master the curriculum and provides him or her with no support. He states,

If his difficulty lies, as it may, in his inability to master the hidden curriculum of his culture's school, whose problem is this? Whose fault is it? It would be a cruel school indeed that would think first to blame the student for his/her inability to master the curriculum. (p. 77)

In an effort to provide an alternative to "blaming the student," Kegan suggests that two understandings are paramount: first, an explicit understanding of the developmental demands of modern culture; and second, an explicit understanding of the supports necessary to enable adults and adolescents to meet those demands. In parts two and three of his book, Kegan chronicles the different expert literatures on adult life - the literatures on parenting, partnering, work, therapy, learning, multiculturalism - and highlights the "hidden curriculum," or the developmental demands common to them all. Kegan suggests that an understanding of the developmental demands of the cultural surround, combined with an understanding of men and women's developmental capacities, has the potential to inform notions of how men and women might best be supported in their sincere efforts to meet these demands. In essence, he suggests that these understandings have the potential to yield a better vision. In 1982, Kegan stated in The Evolving Self,

If this book is apparently about a way of seeing others, its secret devotion is to the dangerous recruitability such seeing brings on. So perhaps the book should carry a warning. Though it is aimed at our vision, at helping us to see better what it is that people are doing, what the eye sees better the heart feels more deeply. We not only increase the likelihood of our being moved; we also run the risks that being moved entails. For we are moved somewhere, and that somewhere is further into life, closer to those we live with. . . . It is our recruitability, as much as our knowledge of what to do once drawn, that makes us of value in our caring for another's development, whether the caring is the professional caring of a teacher, therapist, pastor, or mental health worker, or the more spontaneous exercises of careful parenthood, friendship, and love. (pp. 16-17)

Thus, the capacity for professionals in the position of supporting adults in their sincere efforts to be good "students" of the "curriculum" to "see better" has the potential to engender greater sympathy and respect for the ways in which their "students" are making sense of the "curriculum." Furthermore, this understanding has even greater potential to enable adult educators to attempt to create rich environments (i.e., the cultures of home, work, school, and therapy) that simultaneously support and challenge, and that lead to vital engagement in order to promote the growth of the adult mind. Kegan's "In Over Our Heads" is a valuable resource to professionals who seek to foster the creation of such environments.

by Senta A. Raizen, Peter Sellwood, Ronald D. Todd, and Margaret Vickers.

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995. 249 pp. $32.95.

Once upon a time, observation, reflection, analysis, and intuition were often sufficient to identify the steps involved in the fabrication of most technical objects. Today, miniaturization, automatization, and increasing complexity have almost totally obliterated the traces of manufacturing processes. Helping students discover the logic of the design process, evaluate the soundness of particular technological decisions, or understand how technology and society interact nowadays requires carefully thought out curricula and appropriate teaching strategies. In Technology Education in the Classroom: Understanding the Designed World, Senta A. Raizen and her colleagues explain that, unlike many European and Asian countries where technological literacy has become one of the primary objectives of schooling, technology education in the United States is generally not taught in a coherent fashion, and has not yet gained the status that traditional fields, such as mathematics and science, enjoy:

In most instances where schools do offer technology education, it comes in bits and pieces - an isolated project here, a replacement unit there, or at best, a single yearlong course that provides in-depth treatment of a few topics, but offers no continuity from one year to the next. (p. 3)

Technology Education in the Classroom: Understanding the Designed World is the result of an admirable collaborative effort to define technology education, to demonstrate why "[s]tudents should not only study [but also] do technology" (p. 1), to identify the obstacles to the creation of a curriculum, and to offer clear recommendations for curriculum design, teacher training, and program implementation. Using concisely written vignettes that describe actual technology activities in the classroom, the authors support their recommendations while illustrating what technology education would look like. From building model bridges, designing a model glider, or selecting the "best" jar-opener to very ambitious programs such as the Solar Car Project, the authors convincingly show that technology activities can be a wonderful substrate to teach the new basic skills - including the ability to work in groups, to put structure around a problem, and to communicate. Moreover, the close connections among technology activities, students' communities, and other areas of the curriculum could define a new learning arena, in which students could grasp or reinvest concepts previously/usually introduced in the traditional subjects.

The well-organized appendices deserve special mention. Educators and policymakers will find a wealth of information, including a rich annotated resource list for teachers and students, a list of magazines and associations promoting technology education, as well as the addresses of universities sponsoring teacher education collaboratives and of schools offering ongoing technology programs.

The authors envisioned Technology Education in the Classroom: Understanding the Designed World as a guide for the implementation of technology education curricula, a textbook for prospective teachers, and a resource book for policymakers and educators engaged in reform efforts. Their dynamic but realistic in-depth perspective of technology education achieves this ambitious plural purpose, and represents a landmark on the path to making technology a bona fide field of study in K12 education in the United States.

by Louisa Cook Moats.

Timonium, MD: York Press, 1995. 137 pp. $21.00.

As a novice first-grade teacher, I remember how uneasy I felt about leading my students through a hand-painting activity for the very first time. I also remember the time and effort I put into preparing a unit on subtraction. Yet I never gave much thought to how to teach my first graders to spell. My own primary school memories of weekly dictation and daily spelling tests - activities that, although tedious, had helped me become an accurate speller - were vivid enough to comfort me into thinking that this was a skill I could teach without prior initiation into the didactic of orthography. In her recent book, Spelling: Development, Disability, and Instruction, Louisa Cook Moats begins by calling upon her personal experience as a teacher to dismantle this dangerous misconception: "I learned most of the content of this book long after my basic teacher training was completed. Knowing how to spell, it turned out, was not sufficient for knowing how to teach spelling or how to interpret the problems many of my students experienced" (p. 1).

Rather than offering another recipe book on how to teach spelling, Moats leads the reader on an empowering journey through the theoretical and practical aspects of spelling. In the first two chapters, she skillfully introduces key linguistics concepts as well as the two major competing theories on the cognitive processes involved in spelling. This thorough but accessible groundwork sets the stage for chapter three, a detailed, well-illustrated description of the different stages of spelling development. Teachers will have no difficulty connecting this section of the book to their intimate knowledge of children's spelling performances.

In chapter four, the author continues to develop the reader's capacity to detect spelling disabilities and to characterize children's difficulties with spelling. Traditional classifications of spelling errors give way to finer typologies that distinguish, among other things, errors linked to the phonetic representation of the word. Chapter five explores the use of tests to uncover or to define spelling disabilities, to evaluate students' progress, or to determine their developmental levels in spelling. Moats identifies the features of a "good test" and discusses several existing assessment tools and classification methods. In the final chapter, she proposes alternatives to traditional approaches to spelling, including activities that place the child in autonomous learning situations researching their own errors.

Spelling: Development, Disability, and Instruction makes an invaluable contribution to the understanding of spelling development and to the teaching of spelling. Rather than imposing solutions on ill-defined problems, Moats strives primarily to equip educators with a set of complementary diagnostic tools, and then offers a series of insights into how to put theory into classroom practice. At a time when "whole language" teaching philosophies enjoy considerable following in U.S. classrooms, this well-researched book should convince teachers that meaningful spelling instruction, meshed with authentic written expression, should be offered to those who do not acquire spelling "naturally."

by Susannah Sheffer.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1995. 191 pp. $22.95.

In A Sense of Self, Susannah Sheffer interviewed fifty-five girls between the ages of eleven and sixteen who have been out of formal school settings for at least two years. "These homeschoolers," according to Sheffer, "learn at home and in the surrounding community rather than in schools" (p. 4). Sheffer draws on Carol Gilligan's research on girls' development, on the work of the American Association of University Women in How Schools Shortchange Girls, and on that of Elizabeth Debold, Marie Wilson, and Idelisse Malave in The Mother Daughter Revolution: From Betrayal to Power, to provide the theoretical framework for the words and thoughts of the girls she interviews.

"I wanted to know if homeschooled adolescent girls were really as different as they seemed to be with regard to issues of self-esteem and trust in their own perceptions" (p. 7), writes Sheffer in her introduction. The interview questions asked the participants how they felt about themselves, their parents, siblings, friends, making choices, coming of age, and homeschooling. The responses revealed that the group of girls that Sheffer studied are independent thinkers, motivated, and have a strong sense of self. Most, if not all, of the participants take it upon themselves to pursue their passions and guide their own learning. Sheffer writes, "Given that women often believe they must get everything else done for others before they try to carve out a little time for themselves, it's heartening to think about girls who are learning about the value of their own interests" (p. 28).

The girls' words are compelling. On friendship, fifteen-year-old Robin asserts, "I don't feel that my friends or people in general should agree with me about everything. I think that being around people with different viewpoints can open your mind to new things and/or help you strengthen and clarify your own position" (p. 80). Reflecting on her decision not to enroll in high school, sixteen-year-old Sonya ruminates, "I figured if I didn't go, I'd be unhappy, but I'd still be myself. If I went, school would probably squelch the `Sonya-ness' in me" (p. 121).

Throughout A Sense of Self, Sheffer integrates the voices of the girls she interviewed with the research on girls' development. What we learn is that somewhere amid the struggle of female adolescent development, strong, confident young women are emerging who make difficult decisions, sometimes go against their parents' wishes, and talk their way out of threats by schoolyard bullies to struggle, grow, dream, and learn. Sheffer surmises that formal schooling, as it is, stifles young women and often keeps them from resisting peer pressure. She declares, "If one has thought seriously about the structure and assumptions of compulsory schooling, it is hard to read the psychological literature that asks, `How can we help girls to identify with their own goals?' or even `How can we help girls to discover their own real interests?' without thinking about the fact that school is in direct opposition to these concerns" (p. 178). In this regard, the author asserts that homeschooling has much to offer girls. The author presents positive examples of young women making decisions and standing by them based on what they've learned and what they believe. The words of the young women in Sheffer's book inspire and prod educators and parents to consider the role education plays in girls' development.

by Vaughn Davis Bornet.

Talent, OR: Bornet Books, 1995. 383 pp. $18.00 (paper).

Historian and scholar Vaughn Bornet has written a book that students of higher education interested in faculty lives and careers will want to read. An Independent Scholar in Twentieth Century America is an autobiographical portrait of Bornet's life and career as a "independent scholar" over three quarters of a century, beginning with his birth in 1917 and continuing through his education, his military service, his career as a college teacher and administrator, and as a research historian for such organizations as Encyclopedia Britannica, the American Medical Association, and the Rand Corporation. But Bornet provides more than just a reconstruction of events in a long and busy life. For anyone interested in academic careers, he provides a glimpse into possible childhood origins of one career as well as an understanding of how that career unfolded and developed over time, and the meaning that it held for the author.

Bornet, by his own account, is, as the title indicates, "an independent scholar." He spent his early working years as a researcher, author, and editor outside of the formal structure of the academy. But Bornet is also independent of mind, and it is this characteristic, the author suggests, that contributed to his leaning toward interdisciplinary learning and research and to his willingness to create opportunities for community and academic service as he took on various positions and moved on to retirement.

Some readers may find portions of Bornet's narrative self-serving. The author devotes a lot of text to reminding the reader of his scholarly contributions. He takes jabs at his reviewers, including graduate student reviewers, and is persistently critical of academic liberals and Vietnam-era students. Nevertheless, he writes well and succeeds in telling a story that is both believable and informative. I particularly enjoyed and recommend his chapters on undergraduate life at Emory (1935-1941), his graduate training at Stanford (1948-1951), his "idyllic life" as an administrator at the Rand Corporation in the 1960s, and the trials and tribulations of work in an evolving public college, the Southern University of Oregon, in the 1960s and 1970s.

by Karen Elizabeth Gordon.

New York: Pantheon Books, 1993. 175 pp. $22.00.

Can you explain what a subordinate clause is? Can you define a verbal? For those of us who somehow missed that series of grammar lessons in our formal schooling, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire by Karen Gordon is the ideal resource for catching up: it entertains as it educates in its quirky, gothic, bizarre, and distinctly adult way. Gordon has a flair for both language and teaching, and her clear, accessible, and precise explanations of grammar are complemented by scores of weird examples and arresting visuals. She uses angels, vampires, gargoyles, bats, and skeletons to illustrate, both literally and figuratively, the parts of speech and make the potentially difficult and boring subject of grammar come alive on the page and in the reader's mind.

In this engaging book, Gordon explains just about everything you ever wanted to know about the grammar of the English language: sentence structure; nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions; transitive and intransitive verbs; infinitive, participles, and gerunds; subject-verb agreement; phrases and clauses; and fragments and run-ons. Gordon embellishes each of her explanations with many playful sentences that demonstrate her penchant for the strange. A few examples can provide a taste of Gordon's humor in The Deluxe Transitive Vampire:

The baby vampire hurled his bottle at his nanny and screamed for type O instead. (p. 22)

After the podiatrist had sanded her calluses, she clubbed him with her old soft shoe. (p. 49)

The Lilliputian who was dressed in yellow silk sang to her flea in its cage. (p. 144)

The Deluxe Transitive Vampire demystifies grammar in a unique way, and is recommended for any educator in search of a good book on the subject. Gordon's ilan as a teacher and a grammarian makes The Deluxe Transitive Vampire a handbook that is fun to curl up with for a crash course on nonrestrictive clauses and the passive voice, as well as a resource on grammar that will serve as a handy reference for years to come.

by Carol Brennan Jenkins.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996. 282 pp. $25.00 (paper).

Assessment of children's writing has long been a hotly debated topic among educators. In Inside the Writing Portfolio: What We Need to Know to Assess Children's Writing, Carol Brennan Jenkins brings to life the value of the writing portfolio for elementary grade students, by drawing on her twenty-three years of experience in literacy education as a classroom teacher, reading specialist, and teacher educator, and combining her own research with the findings of others around the development of different genres of children's writing.

While numerous studies have identified developmental progressions within groups of children, such studies frequently leave out rich descriptions of the literacy context. Jenkins' study of the writing of Shane, a third grader, responds to this criticism. She includes writing samples, surveys, and interviews with Shane, along with a chapter written by Shane's third-grade teacher that describes the classroom and Shane's experiences in it. Jenkins also draws on writing samples, surveys, and interviews from Shane's fourth- and fifth-grade years, to take a look at how his writing changes over time. As Jenkins states, the profile of Shane "bring[s] a sense of coherence and life to this book" (p. 25) as the reader becomes familiar with Shane's writing and his reflections on his writing. The reader views Shane's writing through the developmental progressions of personal narratives, story writing, and expository writing.

Jenkins advocates a collaborative portfolio as a means of assessment, in which the teacher and student work together to select pieces to include and to set goals, as opposed to one in which either the teacher or the student has more authority over the portfolio. Jenkins provides a helpful portfolio implementation plan, including advice for introducing portfolios to students and for integrating them into the writing workshop.

The interweaving of the case study of Shane, a third grader, with the existing research on writing results in an engaging and informative resource for both beginning and experienced teachers grappling with issues around assessing children's writing.

edited by Emily Cousins and Melissa Rodgers.

Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1995. 168 pp. $14.50 (paper).

Many people know Outward Bound for the organization's wide variety of outdoor programs that challenge the mind, body, and spirit through activities that include white-water rafting, rock climbing, and survival courses. The principles of Outward Bound have also recently inspired a major school reform effort: the Outward Bound/Expeditionary Learning proposal for a "break-the-mold" school design was among the nine (out of 700) entries selected by the New American Schools Development Corporation (NASDC) in 1992. Based on the idea that students learn best when actively engaged in hands-on, creative, thematic, extended, and interdisciplinary projects designed or adapted by their own classroom teachers, Expeditionary Learning has now been implemented in twenty-five schools in seven districts around the country.Fieldwork: An Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound Reader is an excellent reference for those with a specific interest in learning more about Expeditionary Learning or a general interest in thematic curriculum created by teachers, innovative uses of space and time in education, or first-hand accounts of school reform in practice. Fieldwork includes the winning thirty-page proposal submitted by Outward Bound/Expeditionary Learning to NASDC; interviews with educators involved with Expeditionary Learning; first-person narratives written by teachers and administrators at Expeditionary Learning schools about the day-to-day experience of implementing a new set of educational ideas; articles that place Outward Bound and Expeditionary Learning in a historical context; dozens of photographs of students and teachers, and many examples of student work. A deep respect for teachers is evident throughout this book, and Fieldwork is recommended to anyone wishing to learn more about this imaginative and important school reform initiative.