Features comments from Robert L. Hampel, William R. Johnson, Diane Ravitch, and David N. Plank on David Tyack and Larry Cuban's book, "Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform." The book argues that educational reformers in the 20th century have attempted large-scale systemic reforms instituted from the top down. (MJP)

These books are, in many ways, companion volumes addressed to educators working on curricular issues and educational reform. Both consider how postmodernism, feminism, and cultural studies contribute to contemporary educational theory and social criticism. The authors make a convincing case for critical "border pedagogy" that examines…

The selections of this annotated bibliography of books for children and young adults that feature biracial or biethnic families are coded according to overall literary and aesthetic quality. Twenty-four books are listed, with a fairly complete review and cataloging information for each. (SLD)

Explores the view of motherhood and the concept of mother love as a killer in Toni Morrison's novels "Sula" (1973) and "Beloved" (1987). The triple nature of mother love as destructive materially, emotionally, and literally is examined in the context of African-American women's struggles. (SLD)

These volumes offer a blend of genres, authors, and purposes. Specific portraits are provided for each volume in chronological order. The central historical and educational values are in the view that the books give of the world of petit-bourgeois African-American women at the turn of the century. (SLD)

Discusses the failure of filmmaker Spike Lee to grapple with the real politics of Malcolm X before and after he left the Nation of Islam. Acknowledging the complexity of the man and his context would avoid creating a mythical figure similar to Oliver Stone's movie "JFK." (SLD)

Chinese crime fiction is discussed in the context of political and social change. Chinese fiction bears little resemblance to the model police officer of Communist ideology. Crime fiction has become the main vehicle in China for forming public images of police and may become a channel for social discourse. (SLD)

Addresses the basic conflict between the Enlightenment's humanitarian credo and slavery, the opposing beliefs of the pro-slavery movement and the abolitionists, and the resulting changes in the perceptions of blacks brought about by the emancipation literature of the French philosophers and writers of the eighteenth century. (BJV)

Expatriate characters in six post-independence African novels are disillusioned by the nasty weather, negative racial attitudes, declining morality, and rigid social structure they find in the Western world. Their loneliness in the West ironically becomes a source of African nationalism. (BJV)

This paper critically reviews the book, "My Heart Is On the Ground: The Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl, Carlisle Indian School, 1800." The review begins with a profile of Captain Richard Henry Pratt who founded the Carlisle (Pennsylvania) Indian Industrial School in 1879. Pratt's philosophy was to "kill the Indian and…

Writers across time have valued the use of fiction as a means of truth-telling. Fiction that portrays sexual minorities can lay claim to a place in the school curriculum for many of the same reasons that people include Shakespeare or Twain: they speak to the human experience in all its variety. But for those same reasons, fiction that speaks to…

Reviews a 1994 U.S. General Accounting Office study entitled "Limited-English Proficiency: A Growing and Costly Educational Challenge Facing Many School Districts." The article argues that the report is biased in favor of full bilingual instruction over other methods of teaching English to limited English proficient students. (Contains…

This critique of "Writing to Read," a computer-based reading and writing program, uses aesthetic criteria and artistic criticism. Observations of kindergarten and first grade classes are described; education as art is considered; the issues of time and control are examined; and the aesthetic criteria of balance and coherence are…

Analyzes "The Great Auction Sale of Slaves, at Savannah, Georgia" (1859), a popular work by Mortimer Neal Thompson, an American humorist better known by his pseudonym, Q.K. Philander Doesticks, P.B. The book is one of the most readable, credibly authentic accounts of the abuses of slavery. (BJV)