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Oxford University Press
The following review appeared in the January 2016 issue of CHOICE. The review is for your internal use only. Please review our Permission and Reprints Guidelines or email permissions@ala-choice.org.
Social & Behavioral Sciences
Education
Many studies emphasize that black students, to be successful in school, must, in effect, act white. Put differently: black children resist schooling because of its structure and notion of academic success, so they are not as successful as white children. Lewis (sociology and African American studies, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago) and Diamond (sociology of education, School of Education, Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison) investigate this notion by examining academic performance in context, using data culled—over a five-year period—from multiple case studies conducted at a pseudonymous suburban school in a diverse, relatively well-to-do community. The authors present their findings in four central chapters framed by an introduction and a conclusion. They consider the use and limitations of “acting white,” using it as a lens through which to view differences in academic achievement between black children and white children. They consider the school's discipline policies (who is disciplined, how discipline is applied), the achievement gap at the school and how practices support a hierarchy in which students of color are seen as less capable than their white peers, and how parents' expectations of educational opportunities for their children affect educational opportunities for all children in the district. A readable and important addition to the literature on schooling and inequity.
--J. A. Helfer, Illinois State Board of Education