The Bradley Foundation paid coauthor Charles Murray $1 million to write "The Bell Curve." This support typifies the highly ideological research favored by conservative foundations seeking to mold public policy. The book's key educational policy recommendation dovetails with Bradley's top educational priority: support for school choice…

Three books are discussed: Andresen's "Linguistics in America 1769-1924: A Critical History," Crowley's "Politics of Discourse: The Standard Language Question in British Cultural Debates," and Crowley's "Standard English and the Politics of Language." (36 references) (LB)

Reviews Dinesh D'Souza's "The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society" (1995), exploring his neoconservative ideology in the context of concepts of the underclass and what it means to be Asian American or an immigrant. D'Souza perpetuates the Model Minority thesis, which is itself a form of inferential racism. (SLD)

"The Bell Curve"'s racist overtones have caused a furor, but the book's real (equally controversial) thesis is intellectual segregation's economic and political consequences. The authors bemoan this elitist segregation, yet favor industry's use of IQ tests to select workers. By using IQ to measure a person's ultimate worth, they…

"Forbidden Signs" explores the debate between manualists and oralists in deaf education into political, pedagogical, scientific, philosophical, historical, racial, sexual, economic, and linguistic contexts. The biggest weakness of the book is that it is a history only of the attitudes of hearing people toward oralism and manualism. (SLD)

Discusses five children's books with a multicultural perspective published to commemorate the Columbus Quincentenary. Finds that the books maintain a deeply Eurocentric bias; bury all wrongs in a distant past; and do not escape the hierarchial, elitist, and individualistic attitudes embedded in contemporary society. (SR)

"The Future of Schools" (1998), by Australia's former Minister of Education Don Hayward and Professor Brian J. Caldwell, recounts the development, implementation, and early effects of a far-reaching change effort. The authors'"lessons" are undercut by insufficient data connecting the reform with improved teaching and learning.…

Reviews "The Languages of Jerusalem" by Bernard Spolsky and Robert L. Cooper, noting that their study illustrates that simple models that do not account for relations between spoken language and society are not realistic. Chapters address the language of public notices, the spoken language of the market, and the politics of language…

Reviews book, "The Selling of the South: The Southern Crusade for Industrial Development, 1936-1980" (Cobb, 1982). Describes socioeconomic influences and history of industrialization in southern United States. Emphasizes development's negative effect on people and environment. Suggests that rural Southerners should reconsider and…

Maintains that Schorr's provocative book omits consideration of the basic question raised: whether the social reform the book seeks is possible without a sea change in national politics. Suggests that the book's insights should spur policy makers, nonprofit sector leaders, agency officials, community builders, and philanthropists to use resources…

Presents eight reviews of current books, covering issues of particular interest to black educators and historians. Topics considered include slavery, college admissions and affirmative action, the marginalization of black scientists, black politics, bigotry, and higher education. (SLD)

Few books have generated as much controversy as the recently published "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life." The tremendous polarization on the issue of the relationship between intelligence quotient (IQ) to race and social class, reinforced by the book, and the potential this book has for undermining…

Giroux attempts to bring several new discourses into ongoing scholarly conversations about radical pedagogy, attempting to introduce radical educators to the principles and language of scholarship in modernism, postmodernism, postcolonial studies, and cultural studies. Educators who cross disciplinary boundaries are certain to develop more…

Herrnstein and Murray's "The Bell Curve" claims that IQ is hereditary and that African Americans consistently score 15 points lower than other racial groups. Coolly received by academics, the book is being warmly embraced by Republican politicians endorsing fiscal austerity and social mean-spiritedness. The book rationalizes a…

Smelzer's book deals with the institutional provision of education, rather than education as in and of society, arguing that the relative strength of competing interest groups concerned with popular education determined how rapidly a state-controlled system came to win out over a denominational one in England. (SLD)