Literacy as a Civil Right

The Editor: Stuart Greene’s expertise is in the areas of rhetorical theory, writing in academic disciplines, and the intersections of race, ethnicity, and educational achievement. He has published numerous articles and reviews, is the lead author of a textbook on written argument, From Inquiry to Academic Argument, and is co-editor of two books, Teaching Academic Literacy and Making Race Visible: The Role of Literacy Research in Cultural Understanding, for which he won the National Council of Teachers of English Richard A. Meade Award for Research in English Education.

«After a quarter-century of relentless pressure to reduce schooling for the poor to very intense preparation for basic exams in math and reading, American education is caught in a dead end, and most of the academic world has passively accepted the radical constriction of the nation’s educational vision. These costly and time-consuming reforms have shown little progress even in their own limited terms, and there is considerable evidence that they have radically narrowed education for the millions of children in the increasingly segregated high-poverty schools. In this book a group of scholars reject this simplistic approach and discuss both the broader racial and economic conditions that produce and sustain inequality, and the kind of education the children who are victims of the politics of escalating tests actually deserve and would actually be moved by. This is a challenging and important contribution.» (Gary Orfield, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA)

• Contents: Stuart Greene: Introduction: Teaching for Social Justice – Gloria Ladson-Billings: Still_Black @stanford.edu: A Story of Black Life in the Academy – Pauline Lipman: Education Policy, Race, and Neoliberal Urbanism – Amanda E. Lewis: «Even Sweet, Gentle Larry?» The Continuing Significance of Race in Education – Bob Fecho/Sarah Skinner: For What it’s Worth: Civil Rights and the Price of Literacy – Jennifer Seibel Trainor: The Wages of Whiteness? Rethinking Economic Metaphors for Whiteness: Literacy and Life Goals in an All-White Suburban High School – Adrienne Dixson: «Taming the Beast»: Race, Discourse, and Identity in a Middle School Classroom – Carol D. Lee: Revisiting Playing in the Dark: The Hidden Games of Racialization in Literacy Studies and School Reform – Kris Gutierrez: Language and Literacies as Civil Rights.