Elusive Justice Wrestling with Difference and Educational Equity in Everyday Practice
Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Thea Abu El-Haj is Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University.
<p>"Abu El-Haj has done an admirable service to those of us interested in educational equity, and attendant questions of leadership and the design of policies that will further social justice goals...[She] successfully captures and analyzes the moments, interactions, and activities through which just or unjust educational experiences are constructed in daily life within the school...This book can make a wonderful contribution to the professional learning of educators and others concerned with the sources of, and response to, educational inequities, especially scholars or practitioners of educational policymaking and leadership."--<strong><em>Anthropology and Education Quarterly </em></strong></p><p>"As an attempt to reveal the complexities of working for educational justice in a school, and as a portraiture, <em>Elusive Justice</em> is an engaging work. Abu El-Haj's interviews with teachers and students vividly illustrate the dilemmas she has invested so much time and effort exploring."--<strong><em>Teachers College Record</em>, May 24, 2007</strong></p>
Elusive Justice addresses how educators think about and act upon, differences in schools - be they based on race, gender, class, or disability - and how discourse and practice about such differences are intimately bound up with educational justice. Rather than skip over contentious or uncomfortable dialogues about difference, Thea Abu El-Haj tackles them head on. Through rich and detailed ethnographic portraits of two schools with a commitment to social justice, she analyzes the ways discourses about difference provide a key site for both producing and resisting inequalities, and examines the dilemmas that emerge from either focusing on or ignoring them. In interrogating fundamental assumptions about difference and equity, Abu El-Haj deftly blends critique with a search for hope and possibility, to ultimately argue for ways educators might translate ideals about justice into effective practice.
Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Thea Abu El-Haj is Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University.