Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?", talks about race with "Kappan" editor-in-chief Joan Richardson. Tatum advises more conversations about race and racial identities as a way to bridge the divide between the races. Silence, she says, is not an effective strategy for…

Ruby Payne refutes allegations that her work is built on "stereotyping" and negative depictions of poverty. Instead, she says her work is built on a theory of cognitive determinism, that is, a belief that everyone has a mind and educators are able to develop every mind if they understand learning styles for children of poverty.

Unconscious biases affect one's relationships, whether they are fleeting relationships in airports or longer term relationships between teachers and students, teachers and parents, teachers and other educators. In this article, the author argues that understanding one's possible biases is essential for developing community in schools.…

Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance may be the core civic ritual in the United States and the most common--core because it extracts a personal promise of some sort and most common because it is widely required in schools and concludes the naturalization ceremony for new citizens. While many people have recited and memorized the pledge, few have…

From their first recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, students are taught that the most important unit of social analysis is the nation-state and that people on this side of the border constitute "us," whereas those on the other side of the line are "them." By the time students enter a global studies class as high school…

This article talks about the large achievement gap between children of color and their white peers. The reasons for the achievement gap are varied. First, many urban minorities come from a background of poverty. One of the detrimental effects of growing up in poverty is receiving inadequate nourishment at a time when bodies and brains are rapidly…

In the light of the uncertain benefits and the understated but escalating costs of public services, it is hardly irrational for taxpayers to attack the problem through the cost side. (Author)

The value of Orwell's novel is not to be found in point-by-point comparison between the society it portrays and our own, but in its treatment of such important issues as the centrality of language in thought and action and the dangerous potential bureaucratic organizations have to dominate our minds. (JBM)

Outlines the four worlds of childhood and the ways that alienation in adolescents can be counteracted through the creation of interconnecting links. The risks of losing youths to alienating factors caused by institutions, the social structure, and the pressures under which schools and families function is the highest it has ever been. (MD)