Greene, Stuart (2008). Literacy as a Civil Right: Reclaiming Social Justice in Literacy Teaching. Reviewed by Esperanza M. Zenon, Clark Atlanta University

Greene, Stuart (2008). Literacy as a Civil Right: Reclaiming Social Justice in Literacy Teaching. NY: Peter Lang Pp. vi + 199         ISBN 978-0820488684 Reviewed by Esperanza M. Zenon Clark Atlanta University September 3, 2008 During a recent speech at the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) annual conference, Barak Obama talked about the rights that all children have to a quality education that prepares them to be functioning citizens (2008). Unfortunately, research continues to show that despite the rhetoric of the No Child Left Behind Act, achievement gaps and educational inequities persist. Green’s edited book, Literacy as a Civil Right: Reclaiming Social Justice in Literacy Teaching and Learning, imparts a different way of understanding why these gaps endure by sharing the connections between literacy, civil rights, and education. The stirring research-based collection of essays in this book serves to expand on the dialogue regarding the importance of equity and social justice in the educational reform process. This book exposes the social, political, and historical reasons why legislation and political mandates have done little to further the success of schools. Literacy as a Civil Right suggests that there are more equitable alternatives to high-stakes testing, which can ultimately result in an educational paradigm that is not “colorblind” (p. 11). The book is organized into three sections “The Sociopolitical Context of Schooling,” “How Race is Lived in Schools,” and “Teaching for Social Justice” (p. 10). These sections are informed by Critical Race Theory (CRT), which seeks to question all facets and forms of racism such as the socially constructed nature of race, the connections between judicial conclusions and the white power structure, and the continuation of subordination through the perpetuation of color neutral policies (Ladson-Billings, 1999; Yosso, 2006; Tate, 1997). This book discusses how CRT is relevant to education by outlining its ability to dissect features of the educational process as well as broader areas important to education such as funding. In particular, this work looks at the relevance of CRT to “literacy instruction – the ways language in use – is both taught and learned in different socioeconomic and racially constructed contexts” (p.11). The first section of this book has two chapters which deal with the concept of power and how it influences key aspects of schooling. In Chapter 1, “Still_Black @ the academy.edu: The Challenge of Faculty Racial Identity in Teacher Education”, Gloria Ladson-Billings addresses some of the struggles that blacks graduate students and faculty face while trying to function at majority white institutions that claim to have diversity as a goal. This chapter highlights the fact that although many African Americans are sought after to bring “diversity” to universities, the time that they spend on diversity issues is often ignored when it comes to graduating and gaining tenure (p. 39). In addition, Ladson-Billings asserts that many African American scholars are penalized for doing work that is seen as “too Black” (p. 39). Chapter 2, “Education Policy, Race, and Neoliberal Urbanism,” Pauline Lipman shares her research in the Chicago schools. Lipman’s work highlights the “cultural politics of race” which drives accountability, standards, and privatization practices that serve to marginalize and “demonize communities of color” (p. 46). Despite the criticism that both of these authors have for the power relations at play in American schooling, they both conclude their chapters in an optimistic fashion. Ladson-Billings concludes with a section entitled “Not All News Is Bad” where she highlights the fact that black academic life offers a comfortable alternative when compared to the jobs that many African Americans have. She also highlights the fact that black scholars have a “tremendous opportunity to transform the academy into more humane institutions” (p. 41). Similarly, Lipman concludes on a positive by noting the “rumblings” of movements against “high-stakes testing, student walkouts for immigrants rights, resistance to Ren2010 in Chicago, and youth organizations…outside the school walls” (p. 63). The second section of this book has four chapters which deal with “how race is produced and perpetuated in schools” (p. 13). In Chapter 3, “Even Sweet, Gentle Larry? The Continuing Significance of Race in Education”, Amanda E. Lewis details the ways that race is relevant to education. She discusses how race gets attributed to students during their schooling and how that distinction affects many of the experiences that these students have in school. In Chapter 4, “For What It’s Worth: Civil Rights and The Price of Literacy,” Bob Fecho and Sarah Skinner look at the isolation that many students feel when through schooling they gain knowledge and embrace ideas that are counter to their culture’s predominate practices. In Chapter 5, “The Wages of Whiteness? Literacy and Life in an All-White Suburban High School”, Jennifer Seibel Trainor presents an ethnographic research study that focuses on beliefs regarding middle-class White student’s access to higher education. She uses her research at Laurel Canyons High School to substantiate the notion that even though literacy is typically viewed as White property, the “wage” or worth of this property is hard to pinpoint (p. 120). In Chapter 6, “Taming the Beast: Race, Discourse, and Identity in a Middle-School Classroom”, Adrienne Dixon shows how teacher expectations and assumptions regarding race dictate the learning experiences that they present to students. Dixon’s research further suggests that students and teachers often disagree regarding their ideas of what is meaningful and culturally relevant information, and that this disagreement ultimately limits students’ access to certain kinds of information and learning. These three chapters clearly discuss and highlight the importance of researching issues of race in schooling and using this research to shape and counter ineffective educational practices. The third section of this book has two chapters that deal with the lack of culturally relevant instruction due to accountability practices and mandates which embrace a limited curriculum dictated by high-stakes testing. In Chapter 7, “Revisiting Playing in he Dark: The Hidden Games of Racialization in Literacy Studies and School Reform”, Carol D. Lee discusses how assumptions regarding race serve as a means to “catalog human communities” and how this cataloging affects what we privilege in terms of the literary works that schools teach (p. 158). In Chapter 8, “Language and Literacies as Civil Rights”, Kris Gutierrez examines “the politics of race and class in the schooling of students from poor, nondominant communities” (p. 169). According to Gutierrez, the “immorality of inequality in American schooling” serves to further marginalize nondominant communities by preserving myths of White innocence, colorblindness, and meritocracy (p. 170). These final two chapters offer extremely strong and well framed indictments of the American school system and the literacy instruction that it fosters. These two chapters also offer strong and well framed examples of what a socially just educational system should and could be. The contributors to this book implore us to embrace concepts of equity and fairness by presenting well designed research studies that show the blatant inequities that permeate the current educational system. They brilliantly use their research to show how race-neutral policies, high-stakes testing and accountability continue to be used (or misused) in order to maintain the status quo, while policy makers hypocritically claim to have the best interest of minority children in mind. Fortunately, these researchers do not stop at their criticism of the system. To their credit, they “challenge the Black-White binary as a means for understanding the central role that race plays in our understanding of schools and what it means to teach for social justice” (p. 21). This book does exactly what it sets out to do, that is “offer a set of alternative discourses, stories that will inspire meaningful social and political discussions about the ways in which the public views literacy education” (p. 21). As such, educators at all levels will find this work interesting. It should be of particular interest to those who do research in assessment and achievement. This work is paramount to those who have an interest in social justice, culturally responsive pedagogy, and critical race theory and how these concepts apply to education. References Ladson-Billings, G.J. (1999). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education. Pp 7-30 in L. Parker, D. Deyhele, S. Villenas (Eds.) Race is…race isn’t: Critical race theory and qualitative studies in education. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Obama, B. (2008). Dialogue with Obama Forum. Speech at the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) annual conference, Washington D.C. Tate, W. F. (1997). Critical race theory and education: History, theory, and implications. Review of Research in Education, 22, 195-247. Yosso, Tara J. (2006). Critical Race Counterstories along the Chicana/Chicano Educational Pipeline. New York: Routledge. About the Reviewer Esperanza M. Zenon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum at Clark Atlanta University.