edited by Jacqueline Jordan Irvine and Michèle Foster.

New York: Teachers College Press, 1996. 208 pp. $39.00.

U.S. public schools serve scores of African American students poorly. Rarely does a day pass without stories, anecdotes, or a new piece of research about the "hordes" of unsuccessful, poorly motivated, low-achieving African American students. Although the blame for their problems is frequently placed on the African American students and their parents, educators are beginning to point not to the victims, but to society and the public schools as the source of these students' failure. But who speaks for successful African American students? What qualities have helped African American students succeed? What kinds of schools and school environments serve African American children well?

Growing Up African American in Catholic Schools, edited by Jacqueline Irvine and Michèle Foster, presents the views of prominent African American educators on African American students who are successful and who possess such qualities as resiliency, accommodation to the dominant culture without assimilation, and retention of their positive cultural identities (see pp. x-xi). The authors of each chapter in this edited volume make the compelling argument that these qualities can be found in African Americans who attended Catholic schools and later succeeded as scholars and educators.

The chapters emphasize the common characteristics of the Catholic school environments that guide and empower African American students as they succeed in school and beyond. These characteristics include teachers' high expectations of students; the belief that all children will learn and that it is the teachers' responsibility to ensure that they do; a curriculum that is academic, complex, and rigorous; the schools' acknowledgment and support of the community's efforts to nurture a strong African American identity among the students; and attention to the spiritual development of African American students and their families. In her introduction, Foster explains the purpose of the book:

The significance of this book is that it challenges dominant educational theory that African Americans, as involuntary minorities and in historical relationship to the dominant community, always respond in predictable ways to the perception of limited opportunities. In addition, it challenges the dominant theory that portrays African Americans as helpless victims in a marginalized culture that exists in constant opposition to Eurocentric beliefs and practices. (p. 2)

It is our hope that this volume will move the discussion beyond the current school failure of African Americans to more complex and particularistic insights into how African Americans respond and manipulate political, environmental, and economic situations in order to achieve an education. Finally, it is hoped that these insights will provide readers with new strategies related to how school failure might be reduced and how school success might be achieved for more African American students. (p. 7)

Growing Up African American in Catholic Schools is divided into two parts. The chapters in Part One provide a historical and social context for many of the individual stories that follow in Part Two. I found this first section persuasive, and an interesting contrast to the folklore that abounds in the United States surrounding the education and schooling of African Americans. The authors know their subjects well, and they admirably detail African American academic success in Catholic schools.

Part One, "Historical and Sociological Analysis of African American Catholic Education," begins with the chapter, "The Academic Achievement of African Americans in Catholic Schools: A Review of the Literature." Author Darlene Eleanor York's literature review examines the history and characteristics of Catholic education that influence the achievement of African American students in Catholic schools. She contends that the research supports the view of Catholic schools as "more effective for the education of African American students" (p. 21), and that "the deleterious affects of race, gender, and social class seem to be ameliorated, if not eradicated, in Catholic schools" (p. 39).

Chapters two and three provide a historical look at Catholicism and the increase in the numbers of African American students educated in Catholic schools. V. P. Franklin, in "First Came School: Catholic Evangelization Among African Americans in the United States, 1827 to the Present," presents evidence that Catholic schools served to recruit converts to Catholicism among African Americans because of the social and academic place Catholic churches hold in the community. Because a major goal of the Catholic church was to convert new members, with more non-Catholics enrolled in the schools, opportunities for religious conversions increased. Thus Catholic schools that served African Americans provided an education for the children while converting the parents, in the hopes of swelling the numbers of African Americans who would require or desire a Catholic education. Franklin concludes that not only did Catholic schools evangelize African Americans, but also that "private Catholic schools appeared to be serving their minority clientele quite well" because of the high-quality education African American parents and students received in Catholic schools (p. 58).

In "Making a Way Out of No Way: The Oblate Sisters of Providence and St. Francis Academy in Baltimore, Maryland, 1828 to the Present," Vernon C. Polite discusses the growth of an African American order of nuns whose main goal was first to educate African American girls and then both African American girls and boys. The St. Francis Academy is unique because of its commitment to the education of working-class and poor urban youth. Polite highlights the success of St. Francis: 95 percent of the school's graduates attended postsecondary schools and 80 percent of the students who attended college also graduated.

The final chapter in Part One, "Holy Angels: Pocket of Excellence" by Portia H. Shields, explains how families, teachers, and students work together in a large city to replace despair with academic achievement: "By pairing energetic, committed, and involved educators with concerned and motivated parents, Holy Angels helps its students to achieve their maximum potential irrespective of their economic status or social standing" (p. 83). Shields challenges the traditional approaches that have failed to adequately serve the children in urban schools: As a result of Holy Angels' success, educators may be required to rethink their prescriptive methodologies for educating the children of the urban poor (p. 84).

The chapters by Shields and William Tate from Part Two about the Holy Angels School in urban Chicago refute the notion that African American students who meet success in Catholic schools are middle-class African Americans who would do well in most U.S. schools. In fact, their evidence indicates that the students who are best served and make the greatest gains in Catholic schools are those who are worst served in the U.S. public schools. The authors also make clear that Catholic schools continue to educate a particular population well, even though they spend less per student and thus have fewer materials and resources. However, on standardized exams, these African American students still do not test as well as their White counterparts.

Much of what is practiced in Catholic schools is what current school reform initiatives suggest as ways to improve success of all children, particularly urban youth. There are several "commands" that seem to support schools as they change and become more effective, such as strong home-school connections; teachers who expect, demand, and motivate their students to high levels of achievement; development of self-concepts and self-esteem among students; and a strong core curriculum. The stories in this book show that these were in place in Catholic schools long before public schools "discovered" them.

Part Two, "Personal Memories and Reflections," consists of powerful stories from the authors' personal experiences in Catholic schools. All of these contributors - Jacqueline Jordan Irvine, Michèle Foster, Mary E. Dilworth, Lisa D. Delpit, Antoine M. Garibaldi, William Tate, and Kimberly C. Ellis - attended Catholic schools during the fifties, sixties, and seventies.

These stories are significant because these schools varied in composition, and because the authors attribute part of their own success to the Catholic schools they attended. For example, some were segregated schools in the North and South; others were schools whose faculties were all White while the students were all African American; still others were schools in which the students and/or faculties were mixed in a variety of ways. Most of the authors' stories do not end with their graduation from high school, but continue through their personal and professional development.

In her chapter "Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa: The French Catholic School Experience," Michèle Foster presents an argument critical of John Ogbu's view that African Americans as involuntary minorities tend not to do well in school. She explains that "environmental and situational influences interact in a way that can result in particular families adopting strategies that are believed to be more characteristic of those of other types of minority groups" (p. 96). Foster explains that African American students' school success is related to the expectations of their parents and of teachers who believe they are capable of learning: "These nuns espoused an ideology, a belief that all students could be successful academically, and master the curricular offerings [and] . . . a belief in the educability of students, confidence in their skills, and a commitment to educating all students" (pp. 104-105).

In "Topsy Goes to Catholic School: Lessons in Academic Excellence, Refinement, and Religion," Kimberly C. Ellis relates her devastating experience in Pittsburgh Catholic schools, which she credits to "institutionalized racism/white supremacy" (p. 153). In spite of her ordeal, Ellis did succeed. She identifies a single teacher, strong family involvement, and a strong cultural link to the community as some of the factors that contributed to her success.

In the final chapter, "Lessons Learned: Implications for the Education of African Americans in Public Schools," editor Jacqueline Jordan Irvine makes explicit the implications of Catholic school educational practice for the future education of the nation's African American students. She summarizes the themes of what contributes to success that occur and recur in this set of stories: "(1) curriculum and instruction, (2) common values and shared visions, and (3) race and racial identity" (p. 171).

Growing Up African American in Catholic Schools adds to the achievement motivation literature while providing concrete strategies public schools can use to enhance African American students' success.

N. A. M.

by Stanley Aronowitz and William DiFazio.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. 392 pp. $24.95; $17.95 (paper).

The Jobless Future is an ominous title for a volume that reveals the larger social and economic forces that have come to exploit science and technology to further separate workers from employers. Coauthors Stanley Aronowitz and William DiFazio, however, do not merely issue a warning; they extend their book with a detailed discussion of "alternatives to the long wave of the job culture as the substitution for the good life" (p. 10). In this discussion, they bring up topics often taboo in the current neoconservative political climate such as "regulating capital" (p. 349) and "a guaranteed income" (p. 353). Aronowitz and DiFazio are not suggesting massive social "welfare" within the current derogatory capitalistic interpretation. They go beyond limited and dehumanizing job culture concepts that define existence only in terms of current or past employment to propose social changes based on "justice" in which human pursuits of "pleasure" will be shared by all, rather than only those who can afford it. In this thoroughly researched and very readable volume, Aronowitz and DiFazio take the reader from present popular constructions of the relationships between science, technology, and work to their picture of a more socially just economic existence.

In Part One, "Technoscience and Joblessness," The Jobless Future offers a discussion of the dynamic relationship between work and technology within a capitalist system. Aronowitz and DiFazio open with a historical review of this relationship, and then move to a discussion of the current impact technology has had and will continue to have on skilled labor in the first three chapters. They continue with two detailed examples in "The Computerized Engineer and Architect," which looks at the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and "The Professionalized Scientist," which focuses on high-level molecular biology research. The authors meld historical research with ethnography and interviews in a highly engaging story of several individuals currently practicing in these jobs.

In Part Two, "Contours of a New World," Aronowitz and DiFazio discuss in clear and straightforward terms the relationships between the class structure in the U.S. socioeconomic context and the forces of technoscience. This section is laid out in three chapters: "Contradiction of the Knowledge Class," "Unions and the Future of Professional Work," and "A Taxonomy of Teacher Work." In "Contradiction," they address the role of intellectuals and intellectualism in the United States and how these interpretations reflect U.S. socioeconomic ideology. Aronowitz and DiFazio discuss historical development of these roles and juxtapose them with current trends. In "Unions," Aronowitz and DiFazio provide some history about the role of unions and discuss how this role is linked to the class system in the United States. In "Taxonomy," they analyze their present situations as professors and offer themselves as subjects of inquiry within their constructions of social relations.

In Part Three, "Beyond the Catastrophe," Aronowitz and DiFazio turn to popular culture as a self-reflection of U.S. class structure. In their chapter "The Cultural Construction of Class," they analyze three nationally released feature films. The authors produce an insightful argument that interweaves issues of gender, race, and ethnicity into their discussion of class relations. In "Capital Investment and Job Reduction," the authors connect unemployment and joblessness to the current U.S. capitalistic economic and social framework. In the final chapter, "The Jobless Future?" Aronowitz and DiFazio propose an alternative view to the relationships between work and the individual. They begin this chapter by analyzing the dominant ideological perception that joblessness is the fault of those that are jobless:

Even when one-third of the U.S. labor force was officially unemployed throughout the 1930s, and many workers were put on short-time schedules, they still blamed themselves for their joblessness; the conventional wisdom, shaken for more than a decade but not displaced, was that there was "always" plenty of work for those who wanted it. (p. 329)

From here, Aronowitz and DiFazio shape an alternative vision of work and its relationship to human identity and civil society. They conclude with an idealistic vision informed by the realities of modernity and technology. The authors also discuss an alternative vision, which we are currently moving towards, that is replete with the dehumanization of all who are employed by those who employ.

In The Jobless Future, Aronowitz and DiFazio counter the myopic view most commonly expressed by politicians and the popular press that concentrates on large statistics such as unemployment percentages and ignores the underlying relationships between workers and employers. They uncover and analyze the forces that create the social conditions that we as individuals must deal with in our lives, but often do not understand and feel powerless to change. In their roles as educators through authorship, Aronowitz and DiFazio opened my eyes and my mind to a more conscious view of the social and economic currents the run through my life as I progress in my career pursuits. All the while, they bring to bear the relationships between class, gender, race, and ethnicity in their analysis of these forces.

Throughout this entire volume, I consistently found connections between the issues in The Jobless Future and my position as a teacher. Aronowitz and DiFazio discussed issues I realized my students should know as they begin to navigate their way through their educational experiences, such as the interrelationships between race, gender, ethnicity, and social class that will likely play a role in their future job prospects. They also discuss the impact that technology and capitalism are having on the job market. In "The Professionalized Scientist," Aronowitz and DiFazio's honest portrayal of high-level research in molecular biology and how capital investment in scientific research shapes this research's focus reflects the impact that a capitalist social framework has had on a type of work that was once at least partially insulated from these forces. As an undergraduate and graduate student in condensed matter and nuclear physics, I have had some experience with high-level scientific research. The authors' portrayal of scientific research has helped me to become more conscious of the trends I had seen developing during my years as a student. The authors' frame of reference and analytical framework has helped me develop a better understanding of science in a capitalistic society, which I wish I had had when I was teaching high school physics in order to answer my students' question, "Why is this stuff important?" For teachers who believe that teaching is more than content and schedules, and who wish to develop stronger connections between subject matter and their students' aspirations for the future, The Jobless Future is an essential read. For educators interested in how education is linked to jobs from a point of view outside of the current hegemonic socioeconomic frame of reference found in the popular press, Aronowitz and DiFazio propose an alternative framework for understanding our positions as educators in relation to work.

R. H. T.

by Peter B. Vaill.

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996. 212 pp. $26.00.

Peter Vaill's Learning as a Way of Being is a book whose relevance extends well beyond the realm of its intended audience. The book focuses primarily on the turbulent environments of modern organizations in the rat-race of the information age, and thus is meant for readers holding or interested in managerial roles, in the industrial, cultural, or economic spheres. In essence, it addresses fundamental issues beyond rapid organizational and social reformation; that is, the issues of learning and being, education and self-cultivation. It should therefore also be of interest to educators and teachers, particularly those who are overwhelmed by the instability of the educational system.

Vaill takes today's pace of change and turbulence seriously, as he graphically portrays in the book's subtitle, Strategies for Survival in a World of Permanent White Water. The strengths of the book, however, lie not so much in the "strategies" or "hands-on" approaches offered for adaptation in torrential waters. Vaill's intention, as one reads between the lines, is to render a new perception and attitude toward the seemingly bleak and chaotic situation. Take the situation of organizational life, for example. Vaill rejects the pessimistic sentiment that efficiency and productivity in this kind of setting need to be achieved at the expense of interpersonal relationships. Instead, he emphasizes how one may reconceptualize the meanings of organizations in relation to human motivation, group behavior, and communication. The main theme of his book focuses more on the diagnostic than on the prescriptive. His rendition of the dynamic aspects of learning and being, analogous to that of navigating and exploring, calls for reflection rather than for a rigid application of ready-made solutions. Consider one of his many reflective paragraphs:

It is the nonexplorers who rather naively assume that once they have a clear sharp picture in mind of where they are going, they can trust that picture through to the end. To be an explorer is to not know where, precisely and concretely, one is going. . . . The explorer feels your uncertainty and your fear and even sometimes your fury. However, he or she does not think these states of mind can be escaped. Instead, they are part of what the explorer explores. Perhaps that is the difference between the explorer and you. (p. 45)

Vaill consistently emphasizes that learning should incorporate multiple aspects of our being, namely the cultural, emotional, recreational, and spiritual. This emphasis becomes more evident as he identifies seven aspects of Learning as a Way of Being (LWB). He affirms the relevance of self-directed learning (LWB1), in contrast to prestructured, rigid mass indoctrination. A systematic self-directedness is crucial in understanding the problems to be addressed and the learning entailed in the process of solving them. Thus, Vaill's agenda includes, not unexpectedly, six other educative processes. Creative learning (LWB2) is an exploratory and inventive learning process. Expressive learning (LWB3) is concerned with "real" experimentation. Vaill coins this term to contrast it with conventional classroom learning, which is, in his opinion, demonstration at best. He argues that in real experimentation, learners often do not know what is going to happen, whereas prestructured classroom demonstration filters out the complexity. The fragmented nature of classroom learning often deters learners from seeing how different parts of the learning processes relate to each other and to the whole.

Feeling learning (LWB4) validates the feelings - curiosity, patience, courage, uncertainty, self-esteem, sense of control - that arise in the learning process, embracing them as part of the learning experience, and calling into question a false dichotomy between cognitive and affective learning. Somewhat in line with other characteristics of the learning put forth thus far, on-line learning (LWB5) and continual learning (LWB6) differ from institutionalized and sheltered learning. Learning, in this light, is an ongoing lifelong process, constantly occurring in the midst of working and living. And reflexive learning (LWB7), which somewhat resembles the buzzword meta-cognition in learning theory today, signifies thinking about one's learning process. This type of learning captures the concept that "human consciousness is naturally reflexive. It notices itself, and it notices itself noticing itself" (p. 85).

So, what is new about all these labels about learning and being? Some would argue that what Vaill has proposed in this book has in various contexts been proposed more convincingly by other thinkers, such as Whitehead in The Aim of Education; Dewey in Education and Experience; Bruner in The Culture of Education; or Gardner in Frames of Mind and The Unschooled Mind. I would agree with this sentiment, but Vaill did not set out to write a book on education per se.

Vaill's book nevertheless has its own merits. Its strengths lie in a genuine sense of urgency and relevance. In the process of reading and reflecting on his ideas, I have come to ask myself many questions. For example, in reading his thoughts on self-directed learning, I ask: How can I, living with and facing a sense of inadequacy in the midst of larger social forces not controllable within my area of concentration, transform my sense of futility and generate intrinsic motivation for learning and being? And as I read his analysis on the relationship between spiritual resources and self-cultivation, I ask: How can I develop a new sense of holism in the midst of characteristic atomistic thinking patterns pervasive in every realm of human endeavor in this information age? I am quite sure that, as you read this book, you will be invited to ask your own questions.

L. B. C.

by Patricia L. Walsh.

Boulder, CO: Other Angels Productions, 1995. 56 minutes, $99.00 (videotape).

The Other Angels, a film written, produced, and directed by Patricia L. Walsh, a civilian nurse who volunteered in Vietnam from 1967 until 1968, won the People's Choice Award at the 1995 Denver International Film Festival. Previously aired on PBS, the film is now being used by educators to show their high school and college students another side of the Vietnam War, a side that Oliver Stone never portrayed. Patricia Walsh's Vietnam is one of caring nurses who went to war not because they had to, but because they wanted to. When asked how she could go there, Walsh replied, "How could I not?" Her brief tenure in Vietnam left her in chronic pain from a back injury and made her determined to share with others her experiences with Vietnamese and U.S. soldiers. In this documentary, Walsh reveals the origins of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a term that "nurses like her" invented.

Walsh's film oscillates between two events: her reunion with other civilian nurses in 1993 at the dedication of the Vietnam War Nurses Memorial in Washington, DC, and her days in Da Nang, South Vietnam, portrayed through film footage of the war and events surrounding it. Walsh's narration describes her experiences and recounts the horrors and ironies of war in a subtly self-conscious way.

The Other Angels is important in that it highlights women's contributions during wartime. Walsh explains that the civilian nurses in Vietnam came from all over the world, but mostly from the United States; they were sent by the Agency for International Development and the U.S. Health Service. The majority of the nurses were in their twenties, yet were considered old in comparison to the very young GIs. The women often worked for "twenty-one hours a day," spending much of their time teaching Vietnamese nurses and doctors. They lived and ate locally and learned to speak the language. At the twenty-six-year reunion, Walsh and her colleagues recounted their exhausting work days and interactions with the locals and troops.

One of the most difficult tasks, according to the women, was running triage. The viewer learns that the hospitals the civilian nurses worked in begged for supplies such as oxygen, but it was reserved for the fighter pilots; they ended up giving ether when treating below-the-spine injuries. The nurses' quarters also often lacked electricity and water. The marginalization of women, even in times of crisis, is highlighted by the lack of supplies and facilities; at the very least the priority of the war machine is made evident by these hardships. Perhaps most revealing and infuriating is that the nurses were not entitled to veteran's benefits upon returning home.

The Other Angels is both haunting and surreal. In one of the most poignant scenes, Walsh remembers the irony of her work in Da Nang: she saved so many lives, but a marine whom she loved died from a "salvageable wound." An interesting effect is the inclusion of footage of anti-war marches juxtaposed with the reunion of women who served in Vietnam. Walsh does not address the pro- or anti-war sides of the debate; rather, she shows the impact of war both on the families around her post and on the soldiers who attended the reunion as world-weary veterans. In this regard, the filmmaker succeeds in depicting how war affects both the innocent and the dutiful.

After being invited to attend the reunion, Walsh decided to capture the event and its history on film. At times her narration sounds scripted, as if she is reaching for the "Hollywood Moment." For example, at the twenty-five-year Veteran's Day march in Washington, Walsh comments that the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Wall is "harder to face than rockets and mortars." In my opinion, she does not have to try so hard to tell the stories. For the majority of the film, she lets the story tell itself through those who were there and through powerful visual images.

The nurses were in life-and-death situations daily, yet recounted their days in Vietnam with a kind of distanced, slightly surreal, sweet-sixteen birthday party fondness. How often do the painful and horrific moments in our lives match the cinematic drama of the silver screen, replete with symphony? Real life, like Patricia Walsh's experience in Vietnam, is complex and contradictory. It is not easy to parse the comic from the tragic. Witness the campy voice of the newsreel narrator as he describes an airfield mishap in which many soldiers were killed. Observe the collection of very young soldiers packed onto the back of a truck, heading off to the front lines, singing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" Walsh brings the complexity of life at war to each viewer in this moving tribute.

Acknowledging the hackneyed status the term "closure" has attained in common parlance, Walsh and her fellow nurses agree at the end of the film that the reunion experience has indeed brought closure: "That's when we all realized we were mortal," reflects Walsh. Despite her statement that there are no words to describe Vietnam and the reunion experience, Walsh has crafted an earnest, honest, sensitive film on women's contributions in wartime.

C. A. W.

by Donna Y. Ford.

New York: Teachers College Press, 1996. 256 pp. $52.00; 24.95 (paper).

Reversing Underachievement among Gifted Black Students: Promising Practices and Programs is an important and timely book, the first to outline the problems in defining, identifying, programming, retaining, and providing thoughtful solutions for the education of gifted, potentially gifted, and underachieving African American students. With a newly developed federal definition of giftedness, it is important to ensure that African American students benefit from gifted and talented programs. With this book, Donna Ford will contribute to the reform of gifted and talented programs in the United States. As Ford states in her preface:

This book is an ambitious undertaking . . . developed with multiple audiences in mind " educators, counselors, parents, administrators, researchers, and practitioners. It is comprehensive because it focuses on the psychological, social, and cultural factors that influence the achievement of Black youth who are gifted or potentially gifted. It focuses on the respective and collaborative roles that families, educators, peers, and students themselves must play in promoting the academic, psychological, and socioemotional well-being of these particular students. (p. ix)

In the first two chapters, Ford confronts two related problems - the definition and identification of real and potential giftedness, and the definition and identification of underachievement. She provides encompassing theories and definitions of giftedness, intelligence, and underachievement in order to provide a structure for exploring the practices that facilitate identification of students who are gifted, students who are talented, and students who are underachievers. Within this context, Ford makes a strong case for what she terms "potentially gifted," and argues convincingly that the past and current identification process for inclusion in gifted programs neglects the African American population. Further, she explains how racist policies and practices of educators, institutions, measurement instruments, and negative stereotypes affect the placement of African Americans in gifted programs across the nation, thus causing many African American students who may be gifted to be overlooked. These factors also reinforce the stereotype of African American students as underachievers. Ford exposes the lack of knowledge teachers and other school personnel charged with selecting gifted and talented students often have about this process. Because the traits and talents of many African American students may look quite different from those of White students, she claims, teachers and staff members are often unable to identify gifted African American students.

Although Ford is excellent at pointing out the flaws in the current system for identifying students for gifted and talented educational programs, she does not end her discussion there. She makes ample recommendations for making gifted educational programs inclusive rather than remaining exclusive, such as comprehensive and culturally sensitive assessments.

In chapters four through nine, Ford describes the factors that affect and/ or influence representation of African American students in gifted programs: social, cultural, and psychological factors; gender issues; and school and family influences. She explains the problems and then provides recommendations to ameliorate the effects they can have on African American students. In these chapters, Ford relies on current research while also acknowledging the dearth of research that includes African American participants. Clearly, Ford has done her homework.

In a key chapter, "Promising Practices, Paradigms, and Programs," Ford analyzes several programs that attend specifically to the needs and concerns of gifted and talented African American students. Ford identified ten themes that permeated these exemplary programs: 1) increased acceptance that giftedness is multidimensional; 2) greater recognition that giftedness has - numerous manifestations; 3) accepting that giftedness is contextually and culturally sensitive; 4) developing a culture of assessment rather than identification; 5) an emphasis on continuous and long-term assessment; 6) a philosophy of inclusiveness; 7) a prescriptive philosophy; 8) collaborative partnerships; 9) staff development and parent and family education; and 10) a commitment to reform in gifted education (p. 186). In focusing on these themes and on programs such as Project First Step, Project Discovery, Project Spring II, among others, Ford attempts to identify supportive environments that encourage gifted African American students to achieve.

The final chapter includes recommendations for future research and programs that will increase both the knowledge about gifted and underachieving African Americans and the numbers of African American students in gifted programs. Ford ends her powerful and comprehensive book in this way:

In general, our efforts to recruit Black students into gifted programs have increased in recent years. However, more concerted efforts must be aimed at the retention of these students once they are placed. In this way, we ensure that underachieving, gifted, and potentially gifted Black students receive the education to which they are entitled, that their educational rights are not violated, and that they participate in all opportunities that promise to discover and then nurture their abilities. (p. 200)

This is a powerful ending to a book that should make teachers, administrators, and parents think more deeply about gifted education and African American students' place in it.

N. A. M.

by Karen Greenspan.

New York: Touchstone Books. 1996. 459 pp. $21.00 (paper).

The Timetables of Women's History: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in Women's History is a useful reference book for educators in elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as colleges and universities. Add this work to the growing list of curriculum materials needed to incorporate women's history into the existing canon. At last year's Berkshire Conference of the History of Women, a panel of high school teachers decried the paucity of good women's history materials to supplement their lessons. Greenspan's work helps fill this gap.

Timetables of Women's History is four hundred pages of facts and essays on important women and events in history. International in scope, it is organized chronologically, covering the years --4000- to 1992. Predictably, the entries are richer and more numerous the closer one gets to recent history. The reader can learn the year women voted for the first time in Iran (1963), and that Margaret Brent (1600-1671) "was the first woman to own land in the colony of Maryland" (p. 176). Photographs accompany some of the entries.

In addition to the chronological organization, ten headings contribute to the framework: General/Context; Daily Life/Customs/Practices; Humanities/Fine Arts; Occupations; Education; Performing Arts/Entertainment/ Sports; Religion/Philosophy; Science/Technology/Discovery; Statecraft/ Military; and Reform. Brief essays are interspersed in the timetable on women's involvement in historical events, such as "Egyptian Queens," "Women's Position in Early Christianity," "Renaissance Women Artists," and "The Japanese Women's Movement." These paragraphs provide a narrative to balance the plethora of facts in this work.

A strength of this work is its diversity of entries. The reader can learn about the Vietnamese sisters Trung Nhi and Trung Trac, who in the year 30 A.D. "organized a revolution against their Chinese overlords" (p. 47) and that women were admitted to Scottish universities "on equal terms with men" in 1892 (p. 280). More recent history includes a blurb under the heading "Daily Life/Customs/Practices," in which the author notes that in 1990, Black women in South Africa were given contraceptive injections, "often without their knowledge" (p. 404). Though most works of this kind are assortments of trivia (and this book is no exception), it still highlights important events in women's lives, reveals the oppression women have faced, and celebrates women's accomplishments over the course of several millennia.

The historian in me would have appreciated a list of sources used to compile this work or, at the very least, other references for more information. Also, the term "feminist" is sprinkled liberally throughout this text, and is often used anachronistically. For example, one of the essays is titled "Christine de Pizan: The First Feminist," though de Pizan lived during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Greenspan applies the term feminist at will and matter-of-factly, despite the current scholarly debate on the retroactive application of the term, which wasn't used until the late nineteenth century.

As for the design of this collection, it is annoying that some entries continue on succeeding pages due to limited space. This is complicated further by the absence of periods at the end of entries. In addition, this book is loaded with "famous firsts," the bane of many women's historians. However, my sense is that educators will employ Greenspan's collection as one in a variety of curriculum materials on women's history. Timetable of Women's History gives basic background data that will hopefully inspire students and teachers to research further the lives and events found in its pages. I welcome Greenspan's compilation and recommend it to educators and historians as a quick reference guide to place on the shelf next to other curriculum materials on women's history.

C. A. W.

by Iain Chambers.

New York: Routledge, 1994. 154 pp. $16.95 (paper).

To be forced to cross the Atlantic as a slave in chains, to cross the Mediterranean or the Rio Grande illegally, heading hopefully North, or even to sweat in slow queues before officialdom, clutching passports and work permits, is to acquire the habit of living between worlds, caught on a frontier that runs through your tongue, religion, music, dress, appearance and life. To come from elsewhere, from "there" and not "here," and hence to be simultaneously "inside" and "outside" the situation at hand, is to live at the intersections of histories and memories, experiencing both their preliminary dispersal and their subsequent translation into new, more extensive, arrangements along emerging routes. It is simultaneously to encounter the languages of powerlessness and the potential intimations of heterotopic futures. This drama, rarely freely chosen, is also the drama of the stranger. Cut off from the homelands of tradition, experiencing a constantly challenged identity, the stranger is perpetually required to make herself at home in an interminable discussion between a scattered historical inheritance and a heterogeneous present. (p. 6)

When the "Third world" is no longer maintained at a distance "out there" but begins to appear "in here", when the encounter between diverse cultures, histories, religions and languages no longer occurs along the peripheries, in the "contact zones" as Mary Louise Praat calls them, but emerges at the center of our daily lives, in the cities and cultures of the so-called "advanced", or "First", world, then we can perhaps begin to talk of a significant interruption in the preceding sense of our own lives, cultures, languages and futures. (p. 2)

I recommend Migrancy, Culture, Identity to those who are interested in issues of migrancy and culture, in postmodern thought, and in looking at the world through a prism of diversity of thoughts, languages, cultures, and lives.

M. K. S.

by Olga A. Vasquez, Lucinda Pease-Alvarez, and Sheila M. Shannon.

New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 219 pp. $49.95.

At the heart of Pushing Boundaries is the authors' concern with the interconnections among language, culture, learning, and knowledge that illuminate the relationship between language socialization and bilingualism. The book consolidates research findings from three separate ethnographic studies spanning a six-year period in a Mexican immigrant community in northern California. These findings highlight the real-life activities and linguistic necessities demanded of budding bilinguals - that they be resourceful, creative, and responsible advocates who function as "cultural and linguistic brokers" for others. The authors show Mexicano parents' active role in ensuring the language socialization of their children. These parents' survival often depends upon their children's ability to assist family members, and even their entire communities, with such day-to-day tasks as paying taxes, filing job applications, or visiting a doctor. Notwithstanding the specificity of this case study, the authors believe that generalizations about language learning and its relationship to culture can be drawn from this work and applied to other minority communities living in linguistically and culturally diverse societies.

The authors maintain that a necessary step toward making schools and educators more able to meet the challenges of diversity is to carefully deconstruct arguments about cultural differences and the ways in which these differences are assumed to contribute to linguistic and cultural minority students' failure in schools. Indeed, as the authors explore the diversity on both individual and familial levels within this Mexican immigrant community, they argue that not only do bicultural and bilingual students develop in more ways than schools often acknowledge (e.g., where "language deficit" often translates into "cognitive deficit"), but also that educators could learn much from these students. To that end, the book's summary includes recommendations for educators working toward creating more inclusive attitudes in their pedagogies. Foremost among these recommendations is that educational reform must be a collaborative effort among administrators, teachers, parents, students, and community members. Research and practice about language and culture might then be more informed about how to push beyond present boundaries.

N. H.

by Sharon Vaughn, Jeanne Shay, and Jane Sinagub.

Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1996. 174 pp. $39.95; $19.95 (paper).

Developed by professionals in marketing and advertising, focus group interviews have been traditionally used by marketing experts to gauge customers' responses to products and consumers' perceptions and interests. Interestingly, however, more researchers in education and psychology are now using this interviewing strategy.

The authors of Focus Group Interviews in Education and Psychology explain when and why focus group interviews can be useful. They guide the reader through key stages of the focus interview process: preparing for the focus group, selecting participants, conducting the interview, using focus groups with children and adolescents, analyzing the data. The authors also outline some of the potential abuses of the focus group interview. Each chapter opens with an overview of its contents and a list of the key ideas to be covered. Most chapters conclude with activities that give the reader an opportunity to practice what she has read.

In chapter two, for example, the authors outline the major reasons why educational and psychological researchers are beginning to use focus groups: "variety and versatility for both qualitative and quantitative research methods, compatibility with the qualitative research paradigm, opportunity for direct contact with subjects, advantages of group format, and utility" (p. 12). They suggest that information gathered in focus groups can be used to develop hypotheses, to design survey instruments, or to "fine tune" a research design. Focus groups can be used in concert with quantitative methods as a way of verifying findings of survey research. In my own educational research, I find that including data from focus groups helps to make the research come alive. This data puts a human face on the numbers for policymakers who are unfamiliar with quantitative data analysis.

Focus Group Interviews in Education and Psychology is designed for both experienced and novice researchers. This text would be useful in qualitative methods courses. It provides substantial information for effective use of focus group interviewing by education and psychology researchers.

M. K. S.

edited by Alejandro Portes.

New York: Sage, 1996. 246 pp. $45.00; $19.95 (paper).

Since 1965, a combination of structural changes in the U.S. economy and tumultuous world events (e.g., civil strife in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Iran) have given rise to one of this country's largest influx of immigrant waves - 19.8 million immigrants, according to the 1990 census. In contrast to the earlier part of this century when immigrants were mainly Europeans, more recent immigrant groups come from the developing nations of Asia and Latin America. So different are they from their predecessors that this recent group has appropriately been termed the "new" immigrants. Despite their sheer numbers and diverse backgrounds, little empirical evidence exists in terms of our knowledge of this immigrant wave. And, unfortunately, even less is known in terms of understanding their children; hence the value of this new book, The New Second Generation, edited by Alejandro Portes.

The eleven contributors to this volume focus their attention solely on the plight of the second generation in several heavily immigrant populated locations in the United States: Miami, New York City, New Orleans, and Southern California. Addressing issues of education, language, career expectations, and social and economic conditions, along with psychosocial considerations such as ethnic and racial identities and self-esteem, they strive to provide a detailed account of this population.

Researchers and educators who are interested in issues relating to immigrants and their children will find this book a valuable resource. Immigrant education, an often neglected theme in educational discourse, has benefited from the publication of this volume.

M. K. S.