Books

Ethnic Studies and Multiculturalism (SUNY Series, Frontiers in Education)
Geology of School Reform: The Successive Restructurings of a School District (SUNY Series, Restructuring & School Change)
Social Construction of Virture: Moral Life of Schools
Social Construction of Virture: Moral Life of Schools
Challenge of Eastern Asian Education: Implications for America (SUNY Series, Frontiers in Education)
Conversations with Educational Leaders: Contemporary Viewpoints on Education in America (SUNY Series, Frontiers in Education)
Constructing Knowledges: Politics of Theory-building and Pedagogy in Composition
Integrated Curriculum and Developmentally Appropriate Practice: Birth to Age Eight (SUNY Series, Early Childhood Education: Inquiries & Insights)
Lessons from Restructuring Experiences: Stories of Change in Professional Development Schools (SUNY Series, Restructuring & School Change)
Culture of Denial: Why the Environmental Movement Needs a Strategy for Reforming Universities and Public Schools (SUNY Series in Environmental Public Policy)
Redesigning Teacher Education (SUNY Series, Teacher Preparation & Development)
Representation and the Text: Re-framing the Narrative Voice
Making Meaning of Whiteness: Exploring Racial Identity with White Teachers (SUNY Series, the Social Context of Education)
Poetic Knowledge: Recovery of Education
Students on the Margins: Education, Stories, Dignity (Urban Voices, Urban Visions)
Students on the Margins: Education, Stories, Dignity (Urban Voices, Urban Visions)
Cooperative Learning in Context: An Educational Innovation in Everyday Classrooms (The Social Context of Education)
Beyond Discourse: Education, the Self, and Dialogue
Community Colleges as Cultural Texts: Qualitative Explorations of Organizational and Student Culture (Frontiers in Education)
Educational Knowledge: Changing Relationships Between the State, Civil Society, and the Educational Community (Frontiers in Education)
Words in the Wilderness: Critical Literacy in the Borderlands (Interruptions: Border Testimony(ies) & Critical Discourse/s)
Words in the Wilderness: Critical Literacy in the Borderlands (Interruptions: Border Testimony(ies) & Critical Discourse/s)
Accountability, Assessment, and Teacher Commitment: Lessons from Kentucky's Reform Efforts (Restructuring & School Change)
Challenges of Urban Education: Sociological Perspectives for the Next Century
Sexual Ideology and Schooling: Towards Democratic Sexuality Education

Readings in Intercultural Communication: Experiences and Contexts

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Readings in Intercultural Communication: Experiences and Contexts
Judith N. Martin , Thomas K. Nakayama , and Lisa A. Flores
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Intercultural Communication in Contexts
Understanding Intercultural Communication
Among Cultures: The Challenge of Communication (with InfoTrac®)
Saffron Sky: A Life Between Iran and America
Communicating Across Cultures

ASIN: 0767427165

Book Description

The goal of this revised edition is to explore multiple perspectives in intercultural communication that are grounded in the everyday communication experiences of study. The essays in this edition range from the classic writings of E. T. Hall, Gerry Philipsen and Geert Hofstede to more recent scholarship influenced by critical theory and cultural studies.

The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality

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Resource distribution, not income distribution
Runs out of Steam
Readable, sometimes Brilliant, but Glib
Diversity derails traditional Left program
The Problem of Legalizing Diversity

The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality
Walter Benn Michaels
Manufacturer: Metropolitan Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges -- and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates
Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights
Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (Issues of Our Time)
Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire
What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts?: Classroom Politics and "Bias" in Higher Education

ASIN: 080507841X
Release Date: 2006-10-03

Book Description

A brilliant assault on our obsession with every difference except the one that really matters—the difference between rich and poor

If there’s one thing Americans agree on, it’s the value of diversity. Our corporations vie for slots in the Diversity Top 50, our universities brag about minority recruiting, and every month is Somebody’s History Month. But in this provocative new book, Walter Benn Michaels argues that our enthusiastic celebration of “difference” masks our neglect of America’s vast and growing economic divide. Affirmative action in schools has not made them more open, it’s just guaranteed that the rich kids come in the appropriate colors. Diversity training in the workplace has not raised anybody’s salary (except maybe the diversity trainers’) but it has guaranteed that when your job is outsourced, your culture will be treated with respect.

With lacerating prose and exhilarating wit, Michaels takes on the many manifestations of our devotion to diversity, from companies apologizing for slavery, to a college president explaining why there aren’t more women math professors, to the codes of conduct in the new “humane corporations.” Looking at the books we read, the TV shows we watch, and the lawsuits we bring, Michaels shows that diversity has become everyone’s sacred cow precisely because it offers a false vision of social justice, one that conveniently costs us nothing. The Trouble with Diversity urges us to start thinking about real justice, about equality instead of diversity. Attacking both the right and the left, it will be the most controversial political book of the year.

Customer Reviews:

Resource distribution, not income distribution.......2007-05-23

This book has been analyzed extensively. So I'll be brief:

WBM's suggestion to ameliorate income disparity is NOT income redistribution. It is RESOURCE (healthcare and education) redistribution.

Real estate taxes fund schools - so wealthy suburbs have better public schools than low income neighborhoods. How does an individual parent solve this? Move to the better neighborhood!

Healthcare is ones own responsibility. The actual cost of this for a mediam income family of 4 is 10-20% of income (depending on who you listen to). How does a family deal with this? Suck it up and pay!

In both cases policies for the provision of what are normally considered to be public goods have been outsourced to the marketplace in the US.
If you believe that education and health are the ticket to a better life, then you have no choice but to agree w/ WBM that this is effectively not avaialble to those in the lowest quintile in the US.

US society papers over this by harping on diversity.

The studies showing that social mobility in the US is the LOWEST among OECD nations confirms this.

Runs out of Steam.......2007-05-17

The main idea is that too much focus on diversity has allowed the schools/press/government to take their focus off the more critical issue of levelling the ECONOMIC playing field, rather than the absurd and meaningless "diversity" playing filed, which plays into the elite/rich right's (and left's) hands.

I agree with the author that too much focus is put on race (the author makes the point that race really "shouldn't matter", and may not even really exist); indeed there are some interesting views made on Plessy vs. Ferguson. However, towards the end of the book, when the author branches out to say that the USA's language, and culture (and, by extrapolation, borders) "don't matter" either and shouldn't be the subject of any argument, it became clear that the author had already run out of useful subject matter in this relatively small book.

Readable, sometimes Brilliant, but Glib.......2007-02-05

This is an engaging, sometimes brilliant, book that is also deeply flawed. It is wonderfully well written. The author can turn a phrase and produce the occasional memorable maxim. For example, he says "Diversity, like gout, is a rich person's disease" (p108) and he says regarding the diversity obsession in elite American institutions that "the supposed left has turned into something like the human resource department of the right, concerned to make sure that women of the upper middle class have the same privileges as the men"( p114). The early chapters on the biology of race and "Our Favorite Victims" (which argues that our obsessions with race and gender have obscured our vision of economic inequality) are especially subtle and illuminating.

Still the book suffers two flaws: whenever it treats hard sociological facts the interpretation is typically glib, and the author offers few if any concrete proposals to address the problem of economic inequality. Regarding the first problem, three examples will suffice.

1 On page 98, the author provides the average SAT scores for students in 10 income categories, ranging from less than $10,000 dollars (872) to more than $100,000 dollars (1115). The average SAT goes up with each step up the income ladder. The problem he fails to note, however, is that race or ethnicity is even more important than income in accounting for variation in SAT. In 2006 Blacks averaged 863 and Asians scored 1088 on the SAT, and Asians from families earning $20,000-$30,000 outscored blacks from homes earning over $100,000 by over 60 points. Income is important but ethnicity is more important. In terms of school achievement, "it is more important to be born Asian than born rich," as Lawrence Steinberg once put it.
2 Michaels assumes that white suburban schools are better funded than black/urban schools (p87, passim), and that this accounts for differences in student performance but the evidence is quite clear that more money is spent on urban schools per student than any other type of school. Schools with 50% or more minority students spend 9% more than those with 5% or fewer minority students. My area would be typical. Atlanta City schools spend 50% more per student than suburban counties such as Cobb and Gwinnett but the latter greatly outperform Atlanta on standardized tests. The school district that spends the most in the country is Washington DC and it is arguably the worst school district in the country. There is no relationship between expenditures and student performance, something we have known since the Coleman Report of 1966. Family variables, especially family composition, explain most of the variation in student achievement.
3 The author observes that the academic left has claimed that domestic abuse occurs in every social class but that in fact poor women are 7 times more likely to be abused than wealthy women (pp.117-119). This is true but it hides what is the real variable of importance--marital status. According to the Justice Department and the National Crime Victimization Survey, single women are 4 times more likely to be abused than married women, and divorced and separated women are 10 times more likely to be abused than married women. The income findings are largely a function of the fact that married couples have much higher incomes than single/separated/divorced households.

Regarding the paucity of concrete policy prescriptions, one has to assume that Michaels wants to increase taxes on the rich and distribute the money to the poor but that is no guidance at all. He does seem to prefer that affirmative action shift from race/ethnicity/gender to social class, but as many have observed, such a shift would benefit whites and Asians disproportionately. The single concrete proposal he makes is reparations for slavery. Of course, this is rather ironic, given that the main point of the book is that obsessions with race and gender have blinded us to issues of income inequality, but the larger problem with such a proposal is contained in statements like "reparations are a technology for trying to create a world that comes as close as possible to the world we would have had if neither slavery nor Jim Crow had happened" (p128-129). You have to work very hard to be that facile. Had slavery never happened the descendents of those who in fact were enslaved would be living in West Africa and yet the 37 million people currently living in the US of African descent have a combined income much larger than the combined income of the 650 million sub-Saharan Africans. The typical person living in Western Africa lives on less than 2 dollars a day. By the author's logic, the descendents of slaves are the ones who should be paying reparations. Did I say "glib?" That is absurd.

Brad Lowell Stone

Diversity derails traditional Left program.......2007-01-18

In this relatively short, yet at times long-winded, obscure, and repetitious book, the author addresses the folding of the controversial subjects of race and racism into the notion of diversity. Focusing on race has always led to invidious comparisons and discrimination. But now race is subsumed in cultures, which are to be respected, if not celebrated, for their richness and differences. Not only are all cultures essentially regarded as equal, they are deserving of support, or affirmative action. Individuals as members of cultures are likewise deserving of support with underlying characteristics of race, or others, scarcely being acknowledged.

The net which places differences in cultures is cast wide, including characteristics of gender, sexual orientation, and even wealth. But this is the point at which the author contends that the fixation with diversity hides fundamental and pertinent differences and problems. Celebrating working class culture, or worse a culture of poverty, very conveniently tolerates substantial inequality with very real life consequences. In fact, efforts to ameliorate inequality would be seen to demean cultures, even though they are obviously impacted by low incomes. In another example, the author shows that grouping all women together as potential and actual victims of domestic violence also obscures the high preponderance of cases found in low-income families. It seems that the ramifications of low income may well divide women based on income rather than unite them based on gender.

The author's message after wandering around the subjects of race, characteristics, cultures, and diversity is rather vague. He is concerned that class inequalities actually be addressed through political action, instead of being accepted or hidden as simply another culture. He further questions the entire concept of cultures that are based on race because of substantial scientific evidence that discredits the notion of race. So admitting students to achieve diversity of cultures would cease to be justified, especially in light of actual discrimination based on income. Cultures of poverty may be accepted, but members are severely disadvantaged in pursuing higher education.

In this era where neoliberalism has gained ascendancy, the author is surely correct to suggest that the notion of diversity hides real economic impacts. It does, however, seem a bit disingenuous to suggest that race and culture can be put aside; there is way too much history there. While the book is interesting, though rambling, it's hard to see much of a prescription for moving beyond our economic and cultural situations. Tolerance of differences seems to have derailed the traditional, and needed, Left program of promoting sufficient equality for a viable democracy.

The Problem of Legalizing Diversity.......2007-01-08

Using acerbic wit to discuss the problems that have resulted from social engineering through the laws, Professor Michaels proposes the thesis that the problems with American society are largely based on class/economic grounds rather than what we viewed as the traditional problems like race.

One of the points he laments is the great disparity in income from the top to the bottom of the scale. Yet, in my mind the last chapter 'Conclusion: About the Author,' states that he just might miss several points. For instance his income from teaching at the University of Illinois is $175,000 a year. And in good American (and probably the rest of the world) fashion, he wants more. He admits that one of his motives for writing this book was the cash.

Does he deserve all this. I think so. I see the people in New Orleans saying, 'I've been here (in a shelter in Houston) for four days, somebody should have found me a place to live by now.' Professor Michaels would have found himself a place. The Mexican worker, in this country illegally, would have found himself a place. Professor Michaels has the ability to write the book, the ability to convince a publisher to publish it. These are valuable skills, and he deserves what he gets. Let's face it, the uneducated hamburger flipper is worth just about what he gets.

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Excellent survey of an important debate
clash of values
Multiculturalism, Feminism and Liberalism

Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?
Susan Moller Okin
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Multiculturalism
Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford Political Theory)
Justice, Gender, and the Family
The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era
Justice and the Politics of Difference

ASIN: 0691004323

Book Description

Polygamy, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, punishing women for being raped, differential access for men and women to health care and education, unequal rights of ownership, assembly, and political participation, unequal vulnerability to violence. These practices and conditions are standard in some parts of the world. Do demands for multiculturalism--and certain minority group rights in particular--make them more likely to continue and to spread to liberal democracies? Are there fundamental conflicts between our commitment to gender equity and our increasing desire to respect the customs of minority cultures or religions? In this book, the eminent feminist Susan Moller Okin and fifteen of the world's leading thinkers about feminism and multiculturalism explore these unsettling questions in a provocative, passionate, and illuminating debate.

Okin opens by arguing that some group rights can, in fact, endanger women. She points, for example, to the French government's giving thousands of male immigrants special permission to bring multiple wives into the country, despite French laws against polygamy and the wives' own bitter opposition to the practice. Okin argues that if we agree that women should not be disadvantaged because of their sex, we should not accept group rights that permit oppressive practices on the grounds that they are fundamental to minority cultures whose existence may otherwise be threatened.

In reply, some respondents reject Okin's position outright, contending that her views are rooted in a moral universalism that is blind to cultural difference. Others quarrel with Okin's focus on gender, or argue that we should be careful about which group rights we permit, but not reject the category of group rights altogether. Okin concludes with a rebuttal, clarifying, adjusting, and extending her original position. These incisive and accessible essays--expanded from their original publication in Boston Review and including four new contributions--are indispensable reading for anyone interested in one of the most contentious social and political issues today.

The diverse contributors, in addition to Okin, are Azizah al-Hibri, Abdullahi An-Na'im, Homi Bhabha, Sander Gilman, Janet Halley, Bonnie Honig, Will Kymlicka, Martha Nussbaum, Bhikhu Parekh, Katha Pollitt, Robert Post, Joseph Raz, Saskia Sassen, Cass Sunstein, and Yael Tamir.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent survey of an important debate.......2006-05-08

"Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?" consists of Okin's initial essay addressing that question, followed by a collection of essays commenting on her thoughts, followed by another essay by Okin in defense of her thesis. I admittedly was slightly disappointed the first time I read Okin's initial essay. Although her thesis is clear enough (that the liberal values of feminism and multiculturalism must necessarily come into conflict considering that a large number of cultures encourage the oppression of women), she fails to rigorously define her terms or to support her thesis with more than a few anecdotes. She also tends to conflate culture with religion at times when it is not appropriate, a tendency on which a number of respondents comment.

Although I was initially disappointed by Okin's essay, I came to appreciate it more as I continued reading the book. Although her refusal to define her argument rigorously or to specify at what point multiculturalism should give way to feminism leads some authors to talk past one another, it also allows a number of bright minds to express a variety of viewpoints on different aspects of Okin's essay. The comments range from absurd to brilliant, from obvious to unique and insightful. Fortunately, more of the essays fall into the brilliant and insightful categories than in the obvious or absurd categories. The contributing authors' comments address a number of issues, including: support for specific cultural practices; the empirical validity of some of Okin's claims; the importance of group rights versus individual rights; the practical political and legal problems involved in placing women's rights above certain group rights; and many others.

The final essay in the book, Okin's last word on the topic, is well-reasoned and spelled out. She adequately addresses most of the criticisms provided by the contributing authors, and, perhaps more importantly, she clarifies her position and provides more concrete guidance regarding when she would advocate the rights of women and when she would defer to cultural practices.

The whole book is an excellent (and quick) read, beneficial not for the answers that it provides but for the debate it encourages. In a world that is growing smaller and more connected by the day, and especially in a country to which many oppressed women from around the globe look for a better life, few debates could be of more importance.

clash of values.......2001-11-08

In this slim volume of essays collected from the pages of the Boston Review, a cross-section of contemporary intellectual life is represented in debate over Okin's central thesis that the values of multiculturalism and feminism are at odds (at some level). The hinge of Okin's argument is that feminism is universalist in intent, arguing that all women, by virtue of their being women (or being human), are entitled to certain rights and freedoms; multiculturalism, on the other hand, is often used to support cultural difference, and is local in scope. Conflict emerges when we encounter cultures in which women are regarded as lower in social standing than men, and thus denied rights and freedoms that feminists have (traditionally) held in esteem -- the right to vote, assemble peacefully, earn income, etc. (see Martha Nussbaum's work in "Sex and Social Justice" and "Women and Human Development" for a fuller exposition of a feminist conception of rights). In Okin's estimation, multiculturalists back off from criticism, arguing instead that different cultures must be respected, and indeed cannot be judged because they do not share the same cultural foundation as we (i.e., Westerners) do. Hence, for Okin, a committed feminist, multiculturalism is often bad for women.

This is a contentious and controversial argument, but essential (I believe) in that it forces Western liberal intellectuals to confront the simple fact that certain ways of thinking and being cannot easily coexist. The papers included in this book reflect the divisiveness of Okin's argument, with some coming down squarely on her side, and others arguing that this represents only another attempt at Western intellectual imperialism. Enough diversity in opinions is presented to give readers much to think about and debate.

Multiculturalism, Feminism and Liberalism.......2000-05-20

This book is designed around the first essay, "Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?" The premise of the essay is that liberalism has long advocated both multiculturalism and feminism as philosophies not in conflict with one another. However, what is the obligation of a liberal democracy to cultural minorities that oppress women within their culture? Can the needs of women and minorities be met or are their respective agendas mutually exclusive to one another? Does the sovereignty of a larger state supercede that of a smaller state and to which group does the majority owe its protection- minority cultures or individuals (women)?

These are some of the questions addressed by this book. The first essay asserts that the goals of multiculturalism and feminism are not compatible and that by protecting one, the other is sacrificed. It is a provocative idea and one not addressed enough by political theorists, feminists, or policy specialists. From it, one discovers that there is an inherent tension to these two schools of liberal philosophy (although there are some very good critics of Okin's ideas). See writers like Kymlicka, Nussbaum, or Habermas (to name a few).

If the intricacies and contradictions of liberal philosophy and feminism interest you, then you should try this book. It is very short and can be read in one sitting. It's essentially a collection of essays from a number of theorists reflecting a variety of perspectives on this specific topic. Thought-provoking and worth the effort to take a gander.

Cultural Awareness in the Human Services: A Multi-Ethnic Approach (3rd Edition)
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Cultural Awareness in the Human Services: A Multi-Ethnic Approach (3rd Edition)
James W. Green
Manufacturer: Allyn & Bacon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Reaching Across Boundaries of Culture and Class: Widening the Scope of Psychotherapy

The Power of Language in the Clinical Process: Assessing and Treating the Bilingual Person

Understanding Social Welfare: A Search for Social Justice (7th Edition)

From Poor Law to Welfare State, 6th Edition: A History of Social Welfare in America

Short-Term Treatment and Social Work Practice: An Integrative Perspective

ASIN: 0205286321

Book Description

This book is distinguished by the anthropological or ethnographic approach to cross-cultural or multicultural social work practice. James Green is an anthropologist who brings a unique perspective to social work practice, moving well beyond cultural "sensitivity" to issues of professional practice. The book is based on an established model, that of "help-seeking behavior," that is also widely used in cross-cultural psychiatric and medical work. New topics addressed in this edition include the recent DSM-IV (with its first-time inclusion of a section on "cultural formations"); post-modernism in the social services, with its emphasis on narratives as a means of understanding cases; cultural competence and qualitative evaluation in agencies; new material on work with translators; and the emergence of biracial and bicultural consciousness in American popular culture. The chapters on major ethnic groups in America have been updated with current material from the social services literature. Anthropologists, social workers, therapists, and psychologists.

Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (Sightlines)

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A Provocative, Seminal Work
A Provocative, Seminal Work
A Majestic, empowering work

Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (Sightlines)
Ella Shohat
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality and Transnational Media (Rutgers Depth of Field Series)
Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film (Culture and the Moving Image)
An Accented Cinema : Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking
Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video (Rutgers Depth of Field Series)
Rethinking Third Cinema

ASIN: 0415063256

Book Description

Unthinking Eurocentrism explores issues of Eurocentrism and multiculturalism in relation to popular culture, film and the mass media. The book "multiculturalizes" media studies by looking at Hollywood movie genres such as the western, the musical and the imperial film from multicultural perspectives, examining issues from the racial politics of casting to colonialist discourse and gender and Empire.

More than just a critique of Eurocentricism and racism, Unthinking Eurocentrism also confirms artistic, cultural and political alternatives, discussing a wide range of non-Eurocentric media including Third World films, rap video and indigenous media. Synthesizing literary theory, media theory and cultural studies to form a challenging interdisciplinary study, the authors agree that current debates about Eurocentrism and Afrocentrism are merely surface manifestations of a deep-rooted shift: the decolinization of global culture.

Customer Reviews:

A Provocative, Seminal Work.......2000-06-03

I started reading Unthinking Eurocentrism one night and couldn't sleep until I had finished it. Shohat and Stam's briliantly written, often witty, book is an intellectual page turner. I plan to read it again.

A Provocative, Seminal Work.......2000-06-03

A Majestic, empowering work.......1998-04-01

As a social science student, I found this book invaluable in its incisive exposure of Eurocentrism. The authors treat the subject in a mature manner, and offer an alternative, that of decentering the discussion and making it multi-centric rather than Euro-centric. This book is sensitively written and does not offend Europeans, but seeks to reveal the hidden ways in which Eurocentrism manifests itself. I experienced the reading of this book as liberating and as a validation of my own thinking. I read a university library copy, but I intend to purchase a copy for my children to read - and to refer back to time and time again. It is a timeless work.

Promoting Diversity and Social Justice: Educating People from Privileged Groups (Winter Roundtable Series (Formerly: Roundtable Series on Psychology & Education))

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Promoting Diversity and Social Justice: Educating People from Privileged Groups (Winter Roundtable Series (Formerly: Roundtable Series on Psychology & Education))
Diane J. Goodman
Manufacturer: Sage Publications, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook
Readings for Diversity and Social Justice: An Anthology on Racism, Sexism, Anti-Semitism, Heterosexism, Classism, and Ableism
Teaching/Learning Anti-Racism: A Developmental Approach
Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice
Privilege, Power, and Difference

ASIN: 0761910808

Book Description

In order to effectively implement diversity and social justice initiatives it is critical to involve people from dominant groups. It is dominant groups that perpetuate oppression an educator meet the challenge of implementing diversity and social justice in organizations and in the community?

Promoting Diversity and Social Justice gives theory, perspectives, and strategies that are useful for working with adults on diversity and social justice issues. This book offers educational and psychological perspectives to inform practice and increase options in addressing conflict situations. The first part of the book helps the educator understand the reasons for resistance and ways to prevent it. The second part explains how educators motivate dominant groups to support social justice.

This book is an excellent resource for group facilitators, counselors, trainers in classrooms and workshops, professors, teacher, higher education personnel, community educators, and any other professionals involved with educating others about diversity and equity.

Multicultural Law Enforcement: Strategies for Peacekeeping in a Diverse Society (3rd Edition)

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Criminal Just Instructor and State Police Lieutenant
One star too many
someone not quoted in the book
Better than I expected
Multicultural Law Enforcement

Multicultural Law Enforcement: Strategies for Peacekeeping in a Diverse Society (3rd Edition)
Robert M. Shusta , Deena R. Levine , Herbert Z. Wong , and Philip R. Harris
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Community Policing: Partnerships for Problem Solving (with InfoTrac)
Common Sense Police Supervision: Practical Tips for the First-Line Leader
Police Field Operations (7th Edition)
Supervision of Police Personnel (6th Edition)
Criminal Investigation: The Art and the Science (4th Edition)

ASIN: 0131133071

Book Description

From a diverse team of writers whose expertise spans law enforcement and cross-cultural relations, comes a book with comprehensive coverage of sensitive topics and issues related to diversity and multiculturalism facing police today and in the 21st century. It contains insightful as well as practical information and guidelines on how law enforcement professionals can work effectively with diverse cultural groups, both inside their organizations as well as in the community. Focusing on the cross-cultural and racial contact that police officers and civilian employees have with citizens, victims, suspects, and co-workers from diverse backgrounds, this book contains information on racial profiling, hate crimes, community-based policing, undocumented immigrants and immigrant women, urban dynamics, and gays and lesbians in law enforcement. For law enforcement managers, supervisors, officers, and instructors.

Customer Reviews:

Criminal Just Instructor and State Police Lieutenant.......2007-04-22

I will simply say this about this text. This information is a must read for all who entertain the thought of being a police officer, be it city, county, state or federal. This text is crucial as an "additional tool" for officers; educating one's self in multi-cultural diversity is a good thing especially when taking into account the incredibly diverse population in the U.S. (A dozen scenarios of unecessarily escalated contact with police officers come to mind...)

I am a Lieutenant with the Indiana State Police and an adjunct criminal justice professor at a local college. My students are all interested in becoming police officers. For the most part they come from small towns in mostly white areas. The benefits of specific awareness/respect of other cultures will only help them should they reach their goal to become officers. The better educated more culturally aware officers are truly the most effective ones. Great investigators know how to relate to all kinds of people. This textbook gives us some insight into the communication barriers and cultural hot buttons as well as general behavioral aspects of others. I consider this topic a fundamental building block for a well rounded police officer. Through awareness and understanding we can perform our jobs better and better serve all of our citizens. (our duty) I think some of the previous reviews of this book must be from officers who are too stubborn to change or too disinterested to study. Most officers mistakenly believe that their skills at marksmanship, hand-to-hand self-defense, pursuit driving skills, physical fitness etc., are the most important attributes of a good police officer. Statististically speaking, officer safety and effectiveness improve dramatically by reversing the order and placing "communication" first in line. This text helps to point out better ways for officers to communicate to the people they are sworn to protect and serve. This improved communication has a residual increased officer safety. "I'd rather talk them into jail than fight all the way there..." My thoughts.

One star too many.......2007-02-20

This book is garbage. It contains nothing that will help a police officer do their job safer or more effectively. This book is just a feel-good publication.

someone not quoted in the book.......2006-10-26

I thought this book was the most horrible thing I've ever read. The lies, half-truths and hypocrisies should have this book listed under fiction. How bad is this book. When you have to have someone, that is a source for the material in the book, come online and give it a positive review it can't be worth a damn. That's right. David E. Barlow (who hides in the halls of academia) is quoted throughout this book and found it necessary to come here and defend this book by giving it a 5 star review. Those who can, do; those who can't, teach. And the truth never needs defending.

Better than I expected.......2006-05-08

This was among the 7 pieces of source material on my most recent exam. It was better than I expected. I looked at it from the perspective that I should use a person's culture to my advantage. With a familiarity of culture specific issues, I can make myself a more effective police officer. I found the author's writing to be of high quality, but book did not make me more culturally diverse. If you are looking for a book that teaches you how to be a police officer, this is not it. If you are looking for a book that might explain why the Iranian guy got mad at you last week, this is the right one.

Multicultural Law Enforcement.......2006-03-21

The worse book I have ever read. This book is filled with Liberal jibberish and worthless information that the authors try to pass off as fact. This 500+ page masterpiece is loaded with unfactual opinions from people who know absolutely nothing about Police work. It could have been explained in 50 or less pages. Don't waist your money!!!!!

Across Cultures: A Reader for Writers (6th Edition)

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Across Cultures: A Reader for Writers (6th Edition)
Sheena Gillespie , and Robert Singleton
Manufacturer: Longman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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LB Brief (3rd Edition) (Little, Brown Handbook)
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ASIN: 0321213181

Book Description

Short Retail Description: Designed to offer an appealing anthology where there is an increased interest in connections between and among cultures, Across Cultures, strives to promote understanding of diverse cultures among students. Designed to offer an appealing anthology where there is an increased interest in connections between and among cultures, Across Cultures, strives to promote understanding of diverse cultures among students. Each unit contains selections on American culture by American writers, selections by writers from diverse ethnic groups within the United States, and selections by writers writing from or about cultures elsewhere, thus placing American culture and its diversity into a context of world culture.

Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural

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WONDERFUL!! THNAK YOU SO MUCH
Danzy Senna lies about the Multiracial Movement
Fact Checker Please
Boring and mostly unimaginative
Senna's Mulatto Millennium A Reality?

Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural
Claudine C. O'Hearn
Manufacturer: Pantheon
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Binding: Paperback

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What Are You?: Voices of Mixed-Race Young People
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Caucasia: A Novel

ASIN: 0375700110
Release Date: 1998-06-09

Book Description

As we approach the twenty-first century, biracialism and biculturalism are becoming increasingly common. Skin color and place of birth are no longer reliable signifiers of one's identity or origin. Simple questions like What are you? and Where are you from? aren't answered--they are discussed. These eighteen essays, joined by a shared sense of duality, address the difficulties of not fitting into and the benefits of being part of two worlds. Through the lens of personal experience, they offer a broader spectrum of meaning for race and culture. And in the process, they map a new ethnic terrain that transcends racial and cultural division.

Customer Reviews:

WONDERFUL!! THNAK YOU SO MUCH.......2005-09-03

I am highschool student. all my life I have been made fun of by fellow student once I got into middle school it got worse people started asking me What Are You? and started trying to force me to pick a race no matter what I always replied I am mixed this book shows the courage and struggle us biracial and biculturel go througth everyday a truly wonderful book

Danzy Senna lies about the Multiracial Movement.......2005-02-04

I read Danzy Senna's essay in this book and I came away reaffirmed in my belief that a "black" identity in a physically Caucasian or otherwise non-Negroid person can only exist through emotional child abuse and a lack of self-esteem.

Senna was brought up to believe that her European ancestry is too good for her. If her "white" mother truly loved her children, how could she teach them that? By all standards of affirmative action, Senna has the right to call herself "Hispanic," yet her Black/Mexican father taught her that her Mexican ancestry is also too good for her (perhaps she doesn't know that Mexicans are also descended from the black slaves the Spaniards brought to colonial Mexico). Senna is a sick woman from a sick family.

There are too many of these books and articles attacking multiracial and white identities in persons "unfortunate" enough to be "tarbrushed," as Southerners used to put it. I note that there appears to be an "escape hatch" for Latinos (almost all of whom are at least partly descended from blacks), Arabs and suspiciously mulatto-looking Southern Europeans, not to mention Jews with "Afro" hair.

I have never seen an article in any mainstream book on multiracial identity or the multiracial movement that invited one of its leaders (Charles Michael Byrd, Susan Graham, etc.) to write an article explaining the goals of the movement.

Ever since the multiracial movement started challenging the "one drop of black blood makes you black" myth by pointing out that "whites" and "blacks" totally ignore it when it comes to Latinos and other less "American" groups and individuals, the black elites and their "white slaves" such as Danzy Senna have desperately tried to come up with new myths that redefine a stigma into a "choice," "shared history" and other nonsense. Rest assured, it is the same old "ethnic rape" it always was.

Fact Checker Please.......2004-08-08

This books is ok. I don't really know what Danzy was talking about, though. What was with that list of black people (who weren't even black!)? I'm guessing it's a joke that went over my head. I stopped reading after David Mura's part. He said Dean Cain was 1/2 Japanese. Dean Cain is 1/4. I think people should check their facts before writing something that will be published. I can't go on with this book. Eventually I will because he wasn't the only writer in the book. His just bothered me. Even if it's a little thing, giving wrong information isn't a good thing.

Boring and mostly unimaginative.......2002-08-06

The early entries in the book (first 100 pages) are very interesting tales of unconventional lives revealing the author's confusion with his/her ethnicity. However, after ten or so entries, the reading becomes old and repitive revealing many Americans need to preach their problems. Being biracial/multicultural is not a problem but a gift which I can personally attest. The readings need more creativity in establishing a point that is engaging but captivating. Its too easy to simply say back when I was 4 I came to the realization that... and over and over again. With this book all I can say is find the entry which most relates to your personal history because this book proves that the whole is not greater than the sum, of a portion mind you,of its parts.

Senna's Mulatto Millennium A Reality?.......2001-11-06

This is a delightful book, a nice addition to all of the biracial & bicultural writings by wonderful writers. Danzy Senna's chapter is the best! This chapter had me cracking up for months. It deals with some tough racial issues w/ great humor. Behind the humor of course are issues of race, gender, power, oppression. . . however, Senna's writing mastery is brilliant. Thanks for a great anthology, overall.

Teaching About Culture, Ethnicity, and Diversity: Exercises and Planned Activities

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Teaching About Culture, Ethnicity, and Diversity: Exercises and Planned Activities

Manufacturer: Sage Publications, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Experiential Activities for Intercultural Learning
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ASIN: 0761906959

Book Description

Engaging and sophisticated, Teaching About Culture, Ethnicity & Diversity is a book of easy-to-use classroom and training exercises that are intended for use in teaching about culture, ethnicity, and diversity. Editor Theodore M. Singelis offers tools for teachers and trainers who strive to increase understanding of and communication between ethnic and racial groups. This pragmatic volume is arranged so that users may easily draw on activities to involve students and bring abstract concepts into the realm of the students' own experiences. Although there are common themes that run through the book, each exercise is presented as a self-contained unit with clear instructions, handouts, discussion suggestions, and a concise explanation of the research-based concept that is illuminated by the activity. The first section contains exercises that vary in focus and includes topics such as ethnography, time, and disability. The second section focuses on culture and behavior, while the third centers on identity, stereotypes, and personal perception. Finally, the book concludes with exercises that highlight the cultural construction of reality. A practical tool for both teachers and trainers, Teaching About Culture, Ethnicity, and Diversity will be invaluable in the fields of clinical/counseling psychology, social psychology, cross-cultural psychology, business, management, communication, ethnic studies, and cultural studies.

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