Fishman, Stephen and McCarthy, Lucille. (1998). John Dewey and the Challenge of Classroom Practice. Reviewed by Joyce Cassidy, University of Wyoming

Fishman, Stephen and McCarthy, Lucille. (1998). John Dewey and the Challenge of Classroom Practice. N.Y., N.Y.: Teachers College Press 264 pp. $20.95 (Paper)         ISBN 0-8077-3726-7 $46.00 (Cloth)         ISBN 0-8077-3727-5 Reviewed by Joyce Cassidy University of Wyoming November 3, 2000         In their book, JohnDewey and the Challenge of Classroom Practice, philosophy professor, Stephen M. Fishman of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and Lucille McCarthy of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, explain the ideas of John Dewey and their relevance to today's teaching. The current educational stampede is to align all educational practices so that students' test scores funnel neatly into percentile scores which then loudly shout the student's perceived level of proficiency. It was encouraging to read Fishman's concern as a teacher for not only student outcomes but more importantly, for the means of getting there. After giving a thorough and readable account of the theories of John Dewey, Fishman tells of his pedagogical struggles as a teacher of college philosophy students. McCarthy's role is that of qualitative researcher, watching and writing about Fishman and his students.         The first chapter of John Dewey and the Challenge of Classroom Practice begins with a quote from Democracy and Education by John Dewey, "Such things, [knowledge, beliefs, ideas] cannot be passed physically from one to another like bricks; they cannot be shared as persons would share a pie by dividing it into physical pieces" (as cited in Fishman and McCarthy, 1998). Fishman says this epigraph could be used to explain the importance that Dewey placed on student interest and activity for learning (1998). Ideas cannot be passed out like bricks because, like bricks, they cannot be easily separated from one another, but are an integral part of an entire structure. Like ideas, bricks must have a purpose before they are useful. Fishman (1998) states, "We must have the desire to live in a building, construct a new one, or demolish an old one" (p. 20). Ideas are the bricks or building blocks of the learner. Only when there is purpose, will learners use ideas to begin to construct new meanings and begin to modify and adhere these ideas to those already more firmly in place.         Fishman (1998) goes on to describe two teaching dichotomies that he believes Dewey would find to be nightmarish. One is the vision of a progressive teacher who loves her students by allowing them do as they please (Fishman & McCarthy, 1998). The other is a vision of students arranged in rows, answering rote learning questions. Dewey recognized the importance of both student and curriculum, but thought the focus of instruction should be placed on the learning process (McCarthy & Fishman, 1998). The student should need the curriculum in the learning situation and therefore be "prompted to intelligently explore, use, and remember it." (Fishman & McCarthy, 1998, p. 24). Having been required to read smatterings of Dewey throughout my educational course work, I always read what I was asked to read and felt a stirring of excitement. There's always a new educational theory, a new and better practice in education, but Dewey was a constant. The opposition that was voiced always seemed to be that Dewey focused too much on the student and not enough on the curriculum. So in amongst the excitement that I felt for the type of real-life teaching that I saw as Dewey's, there was concern, that perhaps, the students would gain nothing more than warm fuzzy feelings. Fishman (1998) sums up his interpretation of Dewey and students and curriculum and their relationship to one another: In sum, Dewey takes students seriously enough to worry, not about year-end exams, but about the sorts of character they are developing. He also takes curriculum seriously enough to want students to be able to intelligently access, evaluate, and make it their own. In other words, if we really care about curriculum, we should help students use it, test it, and preserve what is best in it for a developing world. And if we really care about students, we need to study curriculum to understand how it can best promote the methods and traits of character students require for informed, fulfilling lives (p. 27).         As I continued to read John Dewey and the Challenge of Classroom Practice, I again felt that stirring of excitement about Dewey. Dewey cared about the student and the curriculum and the process. I read eagerly on.         Part One explains John Dewey's complicated educational philosophy of nested dualisms. If Dewey's educational nightmares are to be avoided, all of Dewey's dualisms need to be considered by the teacher (Fishman, 1998).         Fishman (1998) discusses the dualism of continuity and interaction. Every learning experience is continuous, taking from the past and laying tracks for the future. Each learning experience also has an interaction component, when the learner is interacting with his environment. The quality of the experience will depend on its continuities and interactions. This seems to make sense, each student takes his past and uses it to construct new knowledge and then takes his new knowledge and is on his way to an even greater understanding. To get to any new understanding, interaction of some sort is necessary. Continuity and interaction are then inexorably intertwined or "nested."         The dualism of construction and criticism refers to the construction or production of anything, whether it be a report, a building, or an idea (Fishman, 1998). The criticism necessarily follows the construction. The criticism is the judging of what is done so that it has meaning and purpose. Without criticism, the construction is meaningless for the learner. Dewey makes it clear that criticism is not to be the red marks of a teacher on the work of a student. Criticism has to be the work of the learner as he views what it is he has constructed, whether it be trying to fit new ideas in with those that he assimilated already or whether he looks at a project or other physical creation and decides whether it fits the purpose that he has meant it to serve. Construction serves no worthwhile purpose without the thoughtful, individual criticism of the learner.         The last of the Dewey dualisms, interest and effort, has three principal components (Fishman, 1998). The "for-whats" are the goals, the problems students want to solve, things they have a need to say, or causes they want to promote. Without the "for-whats," interest will be lacking, and therefore effort. But even a strong "for-what" is not enough. A student must also have a "to-what" or object of focus which is that which must be attended to in the environment, if the "for-what" is to be achieved. The last principal component is a "with-which" or bridge. A student must travel from that which is familiar to that which is not. The right amount of unfamiliar must be present, or the student cannot succeed. Too much unfamiliar and the student is overwhelmed and gives up. Too little, and he is unchallenged and unmotivated to continue.         Once again, as with the other Dewey dualisms, this dualism just makes sense. The ideal lesson challenges just enough, but not too much. This was the first I'd read of Dewey's dualisms. My smatterings of Dewey had not included them. But all the parts seemed familiar, and although I'd never have been able to list them as such, I immediately recognized them as the integral parts of good learning, and it is the constant challenge of a good teacher to provide as many as possible for the students. I thank Fishman for making Dewey's complex ideas more understandable and relevant.         Part Two is entitled "Deweyan Classroom Experiences." Fishman takes us on an autobiographical journey of his quest as an undergraduate philosophy major at Columbia. He tells of his yearnings to understand philosophy and of his desire to know when he was writing philosophically. Fishman's quest to gain understanding of the subject matter and his interactions with his professors lead him to understand that active learning, rather than passive, is necessary. It is Deweyan philosophy which helps Fishman (1998) understand his struggles as an undergraduate student. But Fishman (1998) also says, that it took not only Dewey, to reach an understanding, but 30 years of teaching and reflecting on the problems which he faced as a teacher. As a teacher, he was able to review the problems he had had as a student, and gain some understanding of his professors' reasons for answering his questionings in the ways they chose. Fishman impresses me with the way he's able to think back to his college days and reflect without rancor on what seemed to be his professors' less than half-hearted attempts to assist him in his heartfelt searchings.         As teachers, we're expected to just know, and it's hard to admit the questionings and the doubts. Yet, it seems to me, the more I learn and read, the more uncomfortable I become and the more I question and the more I doubt. Yet, it is those that continually doubt and question that I most admire. Fishman impressively reveals all of his questioning and doubts and relates them to Deweyan theory.         Fishman (1998) attends a Writing Across the Curriculum retreat in 1983. He is so changed by the experience that he throws away the syllabus he has developed for the philosophy class he is teaching. He now thinks that what he has planned to teach is not continuous with his students' lives and will soon be forgotten anyway. Fishman (1998) begins to work to engage his students in learning about philosophy through writing about their own lives, "The centerpiece of my new strategy was the freewrite" (p. 90). Fishman (1998) tells his students that he considers the semester to be successful if everyone falls in love with just one sentence, preferably their own.         In 1989, Fishman (1998) attends a College Composition and Communication Conference, and it is Lucille McCarthy, a panelist at the conference, that questions Fishman about what he is teaching. Was it philosophy? And what was philosophy anyway? And didn't philosophy need to differ from the teaching of literature (Fishman & McCarthy, 1998)? This begins Fishman on another pedagogical quest. Fishman returns his class to more philosophical texts and continues the freewrites but becomes more explicit about their contents. Fishman and McCarthy begin a long running collaborative research project using Fishman and his students as subjects.         McCarthy (1998) triangulates using interviews, field notes, student and teacher documents, and videotapes. Through her efforts, Fishman's class is visited by the reader and Fishman's constant searchings to make his classes more relevant and memorable and Dewey-like are made apparent. Fishman (1998) decides that he, "needed to pay more attention to Dewey's charge to teach indirectly, to integrate classroom activities and resources less obvious than student and curriculum: namely, questioning and answering, teaching and learning, homework and classwork" (p. 133).         The final four chapters of the book concentrate on five students and relate the findings of McCarthy's qualitative study. We see the results of Fishman's remodeled pedagogy which includes a letter exchange within the classroom in which Fishman (1998) hopes to, "get students to come up with their own foci of interest from the assigned text, what Dewey would call their own ‘to-whats'" (p. 134). "For-what" also becomes more than just a student wanting a good grade, there is now the desire to understand the material so that it can be related to a fellow student and the readings hopefully become relevant to issues in the students' own lives.         In their conclusion, Fishman and McCarthy (1998) answer the question of, "Why Dewey, now?" First, Dewey's ideas are relevant to contemporary criticisms leveled at public education. Second, his ideas are feasible as well as effective in promoting teacher development, and, third, they are feasible and effective in promoting student learning (219).         Although this book was written about a college class, I found it relevant as an elementary teacher. To have the opportunity to share in the searchings of a great and caring teacher as he scrutinizes and modifies his teaching practices, was inspiring. I don't think Dewey would approve of the test score mentality which seems to be taking over the field of education, but I think he would approve of Fishman's and McCarthy's book. About the Authors Stephen M. Fishman is at University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Lucille McCarthy is at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. About the Reviewer Joyce Cassidy is an elementary classroom teacher and an education doctoral student at the University of Wyoming.

Ravitch, Diane. (1996) National Standards in American Education: A Citizen's Guide. Reviewed by Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Ravitch, Diane. (1996) National Standards in American Education: A Citizen's Guide. Washington: The Brookings Institution. Pp. 223 $16.95 (Paper)       0-8157-7351-x $38.95 (Cloth)       0-8157-7352-8 Reviewed by Michael W. Apple University of Wisconsin, Madison December 7, 2000           I assume that Diane Ravitch is someone who is as deeply committed to a fair and socially just education as I am—even when our political and educational agendas may differ—I also assume that re-stratification and fostering the power of the conservative restoration is not what she wants either. Thus, I do urge you to read this book, but perhaps for different reasons: to see it as a cautionary tale and then to watch as the public policies that are justified under its rhetorical umbrella and that are actually implemented on the ground go in uncomfortable directions.           Before you read any further, you should know that this will not be a "disinterested" review by a "disinterested" observer. Diane Ravitch and I have a prior history of interaction in print. Thus when her book written with Chester Finn—What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? (1987)—appeared I was invited to review it for a major journal. While I thought that the volume did raise some interesting issues, I also argued that it was flawed and was ideally suited to advance the neo-conservative attack on schools. Diane Ravitch responded, partly in a serious way but also in a relatively "cute" way that did not deal with the substantive concerns I raised, perhaps because of the length limitations imposed on any response. Through it all, it was clear that we disagreed in truly major ways. But, even with these substantial disagreements, the discourse never became that form of character assassination that too often poses as arguments between left and right.           At the risk of seeming consistent, I have exactly the same reaction to Ravitch's recent volume on national standards as I did to her earlier book on testing. Once again, it raises some interesting issues and once again I believe that its arguments are deeply flawed. This volume too is ideally suited to support political and cultural positions that are more conservative than Ravitch herself may be.           National Standards in American Education is meant to be a popular book. I do not mean this at all negatively. Educational policy and practice have become ever more complicated and strikingly political. Thus, there is a great need for books that sort through the complexities, present clear syntheses of different positions, and clarify what is at stake when particular positions are taken. Yet, because of this, authors of popular books have a real political and ethical responsibility to their readers. They must clarify, yet not overly simplify. They must do justice to positions about which they have serious disagreements. The task of the popularizer is to make arguments accessible, without creating caricatures— straw-persons—whose arguments are but pale reflections of their original depth and power. Therefore, writing popular books on important issues requires an immense amount of discipline, not only stylistically but in reading and presenting the substantive arguments for or against one's position on educational policy carefully.           These requirements make me more than a little nervous about what Diane Ravitch has done—and has not done—in this book. Ravitch is indeed a fine writer. Her style is clear and unmystified. She has a nice way with words. However, she is considerably less successful in the other demands placed upon the popular writer. She all too often doesn't deal with either the best or the most rigorous arguments of those who do not agree with her presuppositions, often preferring to deal with only the somewhat rhetorical and brief statements of opponent's positions. Whether this is conscious or not, this is quite a clever strategy. It enables the "naive" reader to think that the author is being fair and equitable, at the same time that some telling points made by opposing arguments can be all too easily dismissed. (This is not only a problem with those whose educational, ideological, and political positions are similar to those of Ravitch. Unfortunately, this strategy is also found among those whose positions are closer to my own.)           Given the intense conflict over educational policy now—when it is crucial to listen carefully to multiple arguments about who benefits from the ways our curricula, pedagogies, and evaluation mechanisms are organized and controlled—I worry about this in general. But, in the case of this book my worries are more specific, since Ravitch has done this to my own writing as well as that of others. For example, as some of you may know, I have written at length about the movement toward national curricula, national standards, and national testing. I have raised a number of questions about its overt and hidden effects, its social and cultural claims, and its position on a "common culture" (Apple, 1992; Apple, 1993b).           In general, I have argued—along with many others—that the results of this movement will be that it will be captured by neo-liberal and neo-conservative tendencies and used for purposes whose large scale effects will be damaging to those with the least economic, political, and cultural power in the United States. I have also argued that many of these kinds of proposals are based on little understanding of the daily lives of teachers and the already intensified conditions under which they work. In even more recent work (Apple, 1996), I have brought to bear powerful empirical evidence—much of which was available even when Ravitch was writing this book—to demonstrate these effects. Yet, the representation of my arguments is taken from a two page piece written for a popular political magazine, a piece that was simply meant to provide something of a beginning point to make the reader aware of a set of issues, not to fully argue about them.           Ravitch wrote National Standards while in residence at The Brookings Institution in Washington. As with many of these kinds of think tanks, it too has moved significantly to the right. Thus, the political center has been redefined, often to such an extent that what earlier would have been considered to be quite a conservative position has often now become "moderate." This signifies a major transformation in our commonsense. Much of our public discussion involves quite simplistic neo-conservative versions of the issue of a "common culture." Increasingly, at the same time, other elements that surround what has been called the "conservative restoration" are becoming dominant. Thus, public is seen as bad and private as good. More and more, the neo-liberal emphasis on the marketplace as the ultimate arbiter of justice has been taken as "truth." Indeed, our very idea of democracy is in the process of being transformed. The citizen is now replaced by the individual consumer (See Apple, 1993a; Apple, 1996). And our ethical sensibilities are withering so that many people have now become almost inured to the human suffering that is produced by the ways in which our institutions operate—a reality that may be best described by Jonathan Kozol's powerful phrase "savage inequalities" (Kozol, 1991). While many of us lament this fact, my basic point is to remind the reader that Ravitch's book was itself written under a particular political aegis. It needs to be situated within a set of larger movements, not as an isolated volume about one part of educational life.           Basically, Ravitch is strongly in favor of national standards. These are to remain voluntary and dynamic, not mandatory and static. They are to be assessed in multiple ways, with a focus on that latest buzz word, performance assessment, not multiple choice tests. These kinds of examinations should be given to all individual students in a way that provides comparative performance data on similar students of the same age and grade level. Accompanying this will be the creation of report cards for individual schools and districts. Such clarified national standards and more detailed performance assessments will help colleges and universities and will assist employers. Employers will rely on high school transcripts and there will be a closer connection between what schools focus on and the skills needed to "succeed in the workplace."           There are elements of insight here: the voluntaristic nature of any standards that may be developed; the reduced emphasis on simplistic paper and pencil standardized tests; the urge to give "the public" more information about what schools are doing; the need to communicate to students and parents that education is very important; and so on. Yet, for all of her evident insights, it is almost as if Ravitch lives in an unreal world at times. Among the most powerful driving forces in American education at this time are increasingly something that sounds suspiciously like Social Darwinism and an impulse to use schools for re-stratification. At the same time, neo-liberal, neo-conservative, and authoritarian populist religious fundamentalists have created a tense but effective alliance in which market plans are coupled with proposals for national curricula and national testing. In essence, by putting in place national standards and then national performance testing, we can then set the market loose, since "consumers" will then have sufficient information to be able to choose among "products" (or schools). As odd as it may seem at first glance, the centralizing and rationalizing impulses of national curricula and national testing may be essential first steps toward the long term goal of marketization and privatization of schools through choice and voucher plans (Apple, 1996). This combination of strong state/weak state is exactly what is being tried in a number of nations under the new conservative policies being implemented. As Whitty and others have shown, the results have been more than a little undemocratic or very contradictory (Whitty, Edwards, and Gewirtz, 1993: Whitty, 1997; Pollard, et al., 1994). Why should we expect that the US will be any different?           Of equal importance, is the fact that the fiscal crisis now being experienced in many states has meant that seemingly fine sounding plans—sometimes quite similar to what Ravitch has asked for—have served as excuses to put in place much of what she is against. Thus, for example, in a number of states—even after a good deal of work was done on higher standards and on more flexible forms of assessment—money was only allocated by the state for standardized, reductive paper and pencil tests. It was too expensive to do otherwise. The rhetoric of higher standards and of more flexible modes of assessment coupled with the fear of "declining economies" and "declining achievement" created a sense of urgency to get more testing in schools. However, the rhetoric of "higher" and "flexible" ultimately functioned to increase the power of mandatory state-centered testing of a relatively reductive kind, at the same time as there continued to be no growth in the ability of schools to do anything more about even meeting the old standards and tests. It ultimately functioned to add one more way of intensifying teachers jobs and of blaming the school even more for the social dislocations of this society. Speaking as bluntly as I can, my own prediction is that one of the most powerful and damaging effects of the standards movement and of the performance assessment movement will be to affix labels on poor children that will be even harder to erase than before.           I could go on here. But my basic point is a simple one. Diane Ravitch is quite a good writer and is able to make what seems to be an articulate case for higher national standards and more emphasis on performance assessment of particular kinds. However, she does this by simplifying the contentious issues, by ignoring important counter-evidence, and by failing to fully understand some of the most powerful economic, ideological, and political currents in the United States and elsewhere.           National Standards in American Education could perform a valuable service if it was read as a set of arguments about what to be very cautious of not doing in our drive to "reform" education. There are valuable issues raised in it. However, I predict it will be put to exactly the opposite use. It will add support to those neo-conservatives who wish to centralize control over "official knowledge" or by neo-liberals who want to reindustrialize the school by making schools into places whose primary (only?) function is to meet the needs of the economy and who see students not as persons but only as future employees. And this will occur at the very same time as major corporations are shedding thousands upon thousands of workers, most of whom did quite well in school, thank you very much. It will be used once again to export the blame for our economic and social tragedies onto schools, without providing sufficient support to do anything serious about these tragedies. And, finally, it will be used to justify curricula, pedagogic relations, and mechanism of evaluation that will be even less lively and more alienating than those that are in place now. (For alternatives to these kinds of things and to those that are proposed by Ravitch, see Ladson-Billings (1994) and Apple and Beane (1995)).           Do not misconstrue what I am saying here. As I have argued elsewhere, I am not in principle opposed to national standards or to the processes of assessment—if and only if they are employed to instigate a national debate at every school and in every community about what and whose knowledge should be considered "legitimate" and about the very real patterns of differential benefits our schools produce (Apple, 1996). If they do not do this, then they should be approached critically and with immense caution. Since I assume that Diane Ravitch is someone who is as deeply committed to a fair and socially just education as I am—even when our political and educational agendas may differ—I also assume that re-stratification and fostering the power of the conservative restoration is not what she wants either. Thus, I do urge you to read this book, but perhaps for different reasons: to see it as a cautionary tale and then to watch as the public policies that are justified under its rhetorical umbrella and that are actually implemented on the ground go in uncomfortable directions. References Apple, M. W. (1992) Do the standards go far enough? Journal of Research in Mathematics Education 23 (5), pp. 413-431. Apple, M. W. (1993a) Official knowledge. New York: Routledge. Apple, M. W. (1993b) The politics of official knowledge: Does a national curriculum make sense? Teachers College Record 95 (2), pp. 222-241. Apple, M. W. (1996) Cultural politics and education. New York: Teachers College Press. Apple, M. W. and Beane, J. A. (Eds.) (1995) Democratic schools. Washington, DC: Association for Supervision and Curriculum and Instruction. Kozol, J. (1991) Savage inequalities. New York: Crown. Ladson-Billings, G. (1994) The dreamkeepers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Pollard, A. et al. (1994) Changing english primary schools? London: Cassell. Whitty, G. (1997) Creating quasi-markets in education. In Apple, M. W. (Ed.) Review of research in education, Volume 22. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Whitty, G., Edwards, T. and Gewirtz, S. (1993) Specialization and choice in urban schools. New York: Routledge. About the Reviewer Michael W. Apple is John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Correspondence may be sent to Professor Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, 225 North Mills Street, Madison WI 53706 or via email at apple@education.wisc.edu.

Nussbaum, Martha. (2000). Women and human development: The capabilities approach. Reviewed by John Ambrosio, University of Washington

Nussbaum, Martha. (2000). Women and human development: The capabilities approach. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xxi + 312. $24.95          ISBN 0-521-66086-6 Reviewed by John Ambrosio, University of Washington January 25, 2001         In Women and Human Development, Martha Nussbaum attempts to shift the theoretical terrain on which international development policy is currently situated. In doing so, she constructs a universalist feminist philosophy based on central human capabilities that, if met, would provide the minimum threshold necessary for the development of all people—although her specific focus is on the situation of poor women in India. In place of cultural relativism and aggregated conceptions of the good put forward by utilitarian economics, Nussbaum proposes a set of interrelated and indivisible capabilities, conceived as human rights, that offer moral guidance for the development of political principles that can be translated into constitutional guarantees. The capabilities provide individuals with opportunities for functioning, for making self-defined choices possible. These choices, however, are virtually meaningless without the material preconditions that enable their functioning. Thus, the central question driving the capabilities approach is: What are individuals actually able to do or to be?         Nussbaum's primary objective is to place these spheres of choice "beyond the whim of majoritarian politics" by translating them into constitutional guarantees. For her, the political goal of justice, of meeting the threshold for each capability, supersedes liberty--outweighing and morally constraining choices that conflict with the central principle of political liberalism: "do no harm to others." Ensuring equal access to the central capabilities, she argues, should "constrain all economic choices" (p. 33). Individual and collective choices that result in differential access to the capabilities, she argues, ineluctably violate this governing principle.         Given existing social inequities and asymmetrical relations of power, the capabilities approach requires "spending unequal amounts of money on the disadvantaged" in order to bring every person up to the "same level of capability to function" (p. 99). Thus, universalizing opportunities for full human functioning would require redistributive policies, although the absolute level of resources devoted to establishing functional capabilities would differ according to the specificity of material conditions. Because the exercise of certain types of functioning in childhood are an essential precondition to developing "a mature adult capability," Nussbaum argues that the state has a compelling interest in "any treatment of children that has a long-term impact on these capabilities" (p. 90). Thus, it is imperative that children be given genuine opportunities to exercise capabilities that are vital to their functioning as future citizens.         In addition to material prerequisites, actual functioning depends on an internal process of self-definition, of developing a conception of self as a "bearer of rights and a citizen whose dignity and worth are equal to that of others" (p. 13). The practical value of Nussbaum's theorizing lies in providing poor women with a "framework in which to view what is happening to them and a set of concepts with which to criticize abuses that otherwise might have lurked nameless in the background of life" (p. 36). By naming the nameless, and providing women with a conceptual framework to identify and criticize abuses, Nussbaum hopes to foster a sense of entitlement and to strengthen the moral authority necessary to resist social norms that constrict or deny opportunities for "truly human functioning." Nussbaum's approach is not prescriptive, women may legitimately choose to live in accordance with traditional beliefs and values, but it must be a choice rather than a social compulsion. In this way, individuals who possess strong convictions about particular conceptions of the good could support the capabilities approach without having to significantly alter their beliefs. Nussbaum is not interested in criticizing the central tenets of particular belief systems, but in opening up possibilities for choosing differently. Creating the possibility of making certain choices does not require that they be chosen.         Choice is problematic, she argues, because of the many ways it is shaped and deformed by "habit, fear, low expectations, and unjust background conditions" (p. 114). To what degree can individuals make authentic choices if their psychic needs and desires are ineluctably formed within the social and historical specificity of certain normative contexts? In effect, Nussbaum argues that some choices are better than others, that the specific conditions in which choices are made influence the possibility of choosing authentically. That is, she insists that informed choices, those based on critical reflection and deliberate intentionality, are more likely to reflect the real interests and desires of individuals than choices made under desperate or constraining circumstances. Thus, the political rights of self-determination and affiliation embodied in the central capabilities are vital to the formulation of genuine human needs, of creating opportunities to make functional choices.         The capabilities approach was developed by Nussbaum during eight month-long residencies as research advisor at the World Institute for Development Economics Research, an institute of the United Nations University. The concept of functional capabilities is based on the pioneering work of Amartya Sen in development economics, although Nussbaum goes beyond comparative notions of capability equality by insisting on a threshold level of capability that can "provide a basis for central constitutional principles that citizens have a right to demand from their governments" (p. 12).         Nussbaum's list of ten central capabilities, which are tentative and open to revision, reflect her awareness of the "specific details and dynamics" of poverty in India—a situation that led to her to place greater emphasis on issues such as bodily integrity, control over one's political and material environment, and human dignity. The list also reflects Nussbaum's belief that the problems of poor women in the developed and developing world should take center stage among the concerns of middle-class women. In addition to ensuring the basic capabilities of life and bodily health, she is concerned with internal capabilities, such as the ability to "imagine, think, and reason," to develop and sustain emotional bonds, to formulate conceptions of the good through critical reflection, and to affiliate with and show compassion for others. Truly human functioning, she argues, also means being able to "laugh, play, and enjoy recreational activities," as well as the ability to "live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature" (pp. 78-80). The capabilities serve as a kind of moral umbrella designed to accommodate cultural variation while establishing cross- cultural thresholds of human capability.          Among the many social forces that compel affiliation and influence adaptive preferences, however, is the free market--and the values it promotes. Curiously, Nussbaum does not directly address the enormous power of the global market to frame individual choices and drive human desires and preferences. Instead, she elides the topic, hoping that the moral claims embodied in the capabilities list will somehow "steer the process of globalization" (p. 105). Given the enormous influence of neoliberal schemes of privatization and structural adjustment, and the extension of capitalist social relations to every corner of the globe, it is not clear why Nussbaum believes corporate and political leaders might follow her moral guidance.         Although culture plays a dominant role in socio-emotional development, Nussbaum argues, individuals possess an innate capacity for autonomous choice that is to "some extent independent of culture" (p. 155). Despite this claim, she places little trust in unexamined desire, preferring to rely on substantive rather than procedural goals and values to provide a normative basis for a "partial theory of justice," one that is contextual and contingent given differing social and material conditions. The very idea that "crucial choices would be made about who gets to have milk in tea and who only sugar," she argues, is more difficult for Western philosophers to comprehend than "the big facts of location and political organization and religion" (p. 23).          Nussbaum introduces the principle of moral constraint, or "anything that results in cruel or unjust treatment," to set the boundaries of permissible choice. Choices that result in differential treatment concerning access to the central capabilities are by definition outside the boundaries of what can reasonably be chosen. Thus, discriminatory or repressive choices that constrict or deny equal access to the central capabilities violate the principle of moral constraint.         The paradox in her conception of authentic choice, however, is that the formation of informed desire is itself a precondition for the kinds of functionality made possible by the central capabilities. Thus, how can informed desire, which is essential to making genuine choices, develop prior to establishing the political rights and social conditions that make its formation possible? Although Nussbaum does not state so explicitly, the capabilities approach can only be implemented through a dialectical process of historical change in which thrusts from below and pressures from above move together toward a synthesis.         Nussbaum's central aim is to develop "cross-cultural norms of justice, equality and rights" that make international quality of life comparisons possible while remaining sensitive to local particularities (p. 7). She grounds her work in the concrete realities and substantive issues facing poor working women in India, using the specificity of two women's lives as dialectical reference points in constructing and justifying her theoretical positions. In doing so, Nussbaum constructs an unusual philosophical argument infused with the voices, and informed by the life experiences, of the women for whom she is theorizing. Intent on making her philosophy "responsive to reality," Nussbaum's analytical arguments continually reach out to the reality of everyday social life for relevance and meaning, all the while maintaining a firm commitment to developing universal standards of human capability.         Nussbaum's conception of functional human capabilities challenges the dominant discourse of resource allocation within international development economics. Rather than focusing on the amount of resources individuals are able to command, Nussbaum is concerned with what "each and every" person is "actually able to do or be" with the resources available to them. In effect, she wants to disaggregate the central concepts and analytical categories of international development theory, unpacking and replacing them with ones that reflect the particularity of individual choices, desires, and local conditions. For similar reasons, Nussbaum rejects John Rawls' (1971) primary goods approach to distributive justice because it neglects the "varying needs of individuals for resources and their ability to convert resources into valuable human functioning" (p. 68). That is, the concept of primary goods fails to take into account the ability of each person to translate available resources into functional choices.         Like international development policy, the debate about public school reform has become situated within the conceptual and moral boundaries of utilitarian economics. Thus, applying the capabilities approach to the issue of educational reform would require a parallel shift in the rhetorical terrain of discussion, and a redirection of national priorities away from the neoliberal gospel of cost-benefit analysis to a conception of education based on developing each and every person's capacity for "truly human functioning." Changing the discursive frame of reference would mean reformulating how educational issues are problematized, and redefining the parameters of legitimate and reasonable public discussion about education.         The "glorious totals and averages" such as GDP per capita that serve as normative economic measures find their educational analog in norm-referenced standardized tests and other aggregated assessments of student achievement. When applied to schooling, the capabilities approach is not concerned with how particular schools, districts, or states perform, but how each student is doing relative to where they began. That is, the capabilities approach asks a different question: What is each student able to do or to be given the actual choices and resources available to them?         Standards-based school reform and high-stakes testing violate Nussbaum's principle of undifferentiated access to the central capabilities by imposing normative standards of achievement in the absence of normative standards of actual functioning. In passing Clinton's Goals 2000 education plan, the U.S. Congress rejected the inclusion of "opportunity to learn standards" that would have required every state to provide students with sufficient resources to meet the new state-developed standards. The standards-based school reform efforts spawned by Goals 2000 and a series of national education summits violate the principle of undifferentiated access by requiring all students, despite their relative privilege or disadvantage, to meet the same academic requirements.         The more crucial a specific functioning is to attaining other central capabilities, Nussbaum argues, the more governments are entitled "to promote or require actual functioning over the opportunity to function" (p. 92). Given the centrality of education to the capabilities, Nussbaum calls for compulsory primary and secondary education for all children, fully aware that education is a contested site that has the potential to reproduce ideologies based on hierarchy and prejudice or provide students with opportunities to transcend socially constructed knowledge and identities. Governments can also require a degree of functioning necessary to ensure the current and future availability of certain choices that may not be supported by a majority of citizens.          While accountability is necessary to ensure actual functioning, high-stakes testing does not serve this purpose, and in fact, leaves the state unaccountable in terms of providing standards that give every student the same functional opportunities. Authentic accountability is closely linked to what actually goes on in classrooms and is sensitive to diversity in school populations. The issue is not whether schools should be accountable, but how accountability is determined. That is, whether schools should engage in hit-and-run testing or use multiple forms evidence in ongoing assessments that evaluate a range of intelligences and cognitive skills, and what students can reasonably be held accountable for given widely differing educational needs and access to resources. While governments have a legitimate interest in ensuring accountability, they should not possess sole authority to determine standards for actual functioning. Educational authority for making such decisions must be shared with those who have the greatest stake in the personal development and academic success of students: parents, teachers and other school staff, and district personnel.         Taking the capabilities approach seriously would require major changes within and outside of education. Although guarantees of equal treatment in state constitutions have provided the basis for legal efforts challenging long-standing inequities, they have proved inadequate in ensuring every student access to the same functional choices. In addition to increased state and federal spending on education, undifferentiated access to the central capabilities would require a significant expansion of the national welfare state. This would mean not only guaranteeing access to basic human necessities such as housing, food, and health care, but creating new entitlements such as quality day care, child support, and paid parental leave and vacation time, that enable parents to adequately care for and nurture their children.         What would public education in the U.S. look like if we took Nussbaum's capabilities approach seriously? That is, if society were able to marshal the will to translate them into political goals and constitutional guarantees? If the principle of treating each and every person as an end became a moral and legislative mandate, schooling would change dramatically because education would no longer be about meeting external social, economic, or political demands. Assembly-line schooling would be abandoned and replaced by a conception of education driven by the interests, needs, and culturally relevant learning styles of individual students. Schools would necessarily be small personalized communities in which affiliation and reciprocity would serve as operative moral and organizational principles. Developing the capability of practical reason, or the critical reflection necessary to plan one's life, means accepting and valuing the many ways in which students know, learn, and construct their own conceptions of the good.         At the present time in India, she argues, "the single most effective way for government to promote women's sense of their worth and their entitlements is to promote women's collectives" (p. 289). Nussbaum views women's collectives as the primary locus of social transformation in India while she simultaneously privileges the establishment of constitutional guarantees linked to the central capabilities, some of which are already contained in the Indian constitution, but remain unenforced. This tension reflects the inherent contradictions in Nussbaum's project. That is, as with the case of informed desire, the political rights embodied in the capabilities are, in important ways, a precondition to developing the new "regimes of choice" exemplified by the women's collectives. At the same time, further development of voluntary affiliative associations like women's collectives are vital to creating the social and political pressure necessary to establish constitutional guarantees that protect and extend new spheres of choice.         Nussbaum's project sharply diverges from the neoliberal ideology and market values that currently dominate public discussion of educational reform in the U.S. The group solidarity and non-hierarchical communities of care Nussbaum found so important in strengthening women's sense of power, self- worth, and identity are applicable to schooling, internal capabilities that are being systematically undermined by the imposition of high-stakes tests that diminish hopes and lower expectations for the majority of students across the U.S. who have not been guaranteed the opportunity to meet them. Public education remains a vigorously contested and contradictory site, one that may yet provide opportunities to begin shifting the national debate in the direction shown by the capabilities approach. Reference Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. About the Reviewer John Ambrosio is a Ph.D. student in the Program in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Washington, Seattle. His main areas of interest are multicultural education, philosophy of education, epistemology, and educational reform. This review was produced under the special editorship of David Blacker.

Smart, John C., Feldman, Kenneth A., and Ethington, Corinna A. (2000). Academic Disciplines: Holland's Theory and the Study of College Students and Faculty. Reviewed by Marc Cutright, Johns Hopkins University

Smart, John C., Feldman, Kenneth A., and Ethington, Corinna A. (2000). Academic Disciplines: Holland's Theory and the Study of College Students and Faculty. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Pp. xiv + 277. $39.95          ISBN 0-8265-1305-0. Reviewed by Marc Cutright Johns Hopkins University February 12, 2001          The case put forward by the authors is that there has been little common research connecting those who study college faculty and academic disciplines, and those who study change among college students over the course of their experience in higher education. Further, they assert that theory-based inquiry has been peripheral to inquiries in either broad area.         Academic Disciplines is an address to both perceived deficiencies. The authors use John Holland's theory of careers as an analytical framework, and through it examine the choice of majors by college students, the changes in those decisions that come from college experience, and how the Holland theory explains differences in disciplinary cultures and the influence they have on students.         Early on, the authors present a summary of Holland's theory, and that is appropriate here. Holland's theory of careers, although a mainstay of counseling psychology and sociology, is very rarely utilized as an analytical framework in higher education, and particularly the study of student experience. First author John Smart, in fact, is the only scholar of higher education to have used this framework in several circumstances and over time, and his involvement gives particular credence to the chain of argument that holds the book together.         Holland's theory has evolved over more than thirty years. The foundation of the theory is that behavior is basically the interaction between individuals and their environments, that individuals have identifiable personality types, and that individuals flourish in environments compatible with those personalities. While the descriptions that follow are substantially summarized for the purposes of this review, the reader should look forward to an extensive and persuasive discussion in Smart et al.         The six personality types posited and researched by Holland and others are Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. Realistic individuals enjoy tools and objects, and can be described as "practical, conservative, asocial, persistent, and frank." Investigative types tend toward exploration, understanding, and the acquisition of knowledge, and perceive themselves as being critical, intelligent, and skeptical. Artistic types prefer the arts and eschew conformity with rules; they see themselves as sensitive and open, while others may see them as creative if disorderly. Social personalities are associated with helping individuals through personal interaction, as see themselves as empathetic and cooperative. Enterprising types are drawn to persuasion, manipulation, and direction of others toward organizational or economic goals; they tend to lack scientific abilities, but are seen by others as energetic and people-oriented. Finally, Conventional types prefer order and routine, and avoid ambiguity; they value accomplishment and power, and are seen by others as conformists.         As with other personality typing schema, these types are not rigidly distinct but more relative, and individuals usually possess some attributes of all six categories. But any one dominant type is more related to a select few others. The types are diagrammed in the book as being the corners on a hexagon, with placement of Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional types in clockwise order. The Social type personality, for example, would be most often related to, and share more characteristics with, Enterprising or Artistic people, while being usually most distant in personality from Realistic individuals.          Holland and others have devised and verified a number of instruments, both quantitative and qualitative, for individual identification in the scheme. These have led to the publication of directories of occupations and college majors sorted by Holland personality type, among other applications. These classifications are based on the other, elemental basis of Holland's theory, that there are environments that parallel the six personality types, and that fit, productivity, and satisfaction result from alignment of the person with the environment.          The empirical research design used by the authors of Academic Disciplines is based on data drawn from national samples of both students and faculty. The faculty data is a subsample of the 1989 survey conducted by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which sought information from faculty about such matters as use of their time, their perceptions of their disciplines and local environments, and their expectations for undergraduate students in their field. The broader Carnegie sample was narrowed for this study to faculty holding terminal degrees and working at four-year colleges and universities.          The student sample was drawn from national data collected by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) sponsored by the University of California, Los Angeles. The focus of the present study is that group of students attending four-year institutions, who completed the entering-freshman survey in the fall of 1986, and who completed the follow-up study four years later in the winter of1990. For each subsample of faculty and students, data from more than 2,000 individuals was considered.          Prior classifications of disciplines were utilized. Through a variety of analytical techniques, data from the faculty survey was used to enrich the descriptions and characteristics of the disciplines with personality- environment types. Likewise, the student data was analyzed using prior, established indicators of type, so that students could be sorted not only as to choice of majors, but as to basic, underlying personality categories. Smart et al. detail their statistical procedures and assumptions at great detail, on this matter and others, but for the reader of more general interest and background, they organize the book so that the reader may choose to critically examine these data choices and findings, or concentrate upon the findings.          There are a series of assumptions against which this data is tested: that students choose academic environments compatible with their personality types; that faculty reinforce and reward behaviors consistent with their environmental types, to which student behavior and attitude respond over time; and that people flourish in environments consistent with their personality types. Each of these three broad assumptions is considered against the data in an individual chapter devoted to it. Generally, the assumptions are supported by the national data.         The last chapter of the three is perhaps of broadest interest to higher education scholars, particularly those whose primary interests are on student experiences and outcomes. Generally, those students who have selected disciplinary foci consistent with their personality types make the most substantial moves toward congruence with the values and intellectual frameworks of their disciplines. Those who have studied against type move toward the pure characteristics, but to a lesser degree. These patterns hold for both "primary" recruits to a discipline (those who chose and stay with a field over four years) and "secondary" recruits (those who change majors), but the congruence of personality and field values is stronger for primary recruits. A great many useful subanalyses are conducted by the authors on environmental classifications.          The authors assert that the general affirmation of Holland to be found in their analyses have a multitude of implications for scholars of higher education. Organization theory and behavior studies, for example, might consider the difference among faculty perspectives and values that Holland's theory suggest, and consider what implications these might have for such matters as stability, satisfaction, and the success of individuals. Those who study student outcomes and changes have tended toward general factors, and services and cultures that are institutionally based; Holland's theory suggests that more specific attention be given to the acculturation and behaviors that are shaped and reinforced by academic departments.         Further research and affirmation of the theory in this context might lead to even more sweeping changes in college curricula and organization. For example, as the authors note, general education requirements in most institutions front-load many and conflicting disciplinary demands into the first year of college. To the degree that there are poor person-environment fits in these requirements, lower levels of accomplishment and satisfaction may contribute to higher levels of attrition and failure. Perhaps the first year of college should be more closely tied to personal attributes and interests, with a spreading of interest, a formal or informal prodding toward the unfamiliar and others ways of examining the world in the second year of college and beyond.          Even more provocative is the suggestion that the conventional collegiate organizational structure itself should be rethought. A college reorganized around Holland's Investigative environment and values might draw to it science education, math education, and educational research from the current College of Education; business economics, systems analysis, and operations research from today's College of Business; and economics, math, and physics from Arts & Sciences. While traditional structures may be congruent with such factors as external accreditation agencies and their standards, they are likely incongruent with Holland or other theory-driven groupings of disciplines and what they value, either among faculty or as student outcomes.          Beyond those inquiries that the authors suggest are many other possibilities. For example, their student analysis is based on those who are retained in higher education for four academic years, the persisters. Studies that focus on those who voluntarily or involuntarily withdraw from studies may offer affirmation of the theory from a "negative" perspective, i.e. such individuals may have been particularly misfit to their choice of college studies. Smart et al. consider gender in many of their analysis, but not race or other pertinent socioeconomic factors; those differences could be fascinating. College failure among minorities, first-generation students, or other groups for which inclusion is desirable, but for which desired levels of success proves elusive, is often attributed either to personal handicaps (e.g. poor academic preparation) or institutional shortcoming (e.g. exclusionary nature of college cultures). Might analysis indicate that such students are more often personality misfits with their college majors, and if so, might this misfit arise from such factors as tracking into economically "practical" majors against their type, poor secondary school counseling, or an absence of knowledge about and role modeling by type-representative professionals? Although the authors focus on a "horizontal" distribution of people to the six environments, potential exists for the study of "vertical" distribution within types. For example, what factors might lead one to a major in dental technology rather than pre-medicine, and are these decisions "correct," or unfortunately influenced by race, gender, or other ideally-irrelevant characteristics?          These thoughts, and ones that other readers might have, are not to suggest that Academic Disciplines is flawed in its reach. To the contrary, it is an ambitious and highly successful work. Rather, as with the articulation of any good theory and its consideration in new domains, more questions are raised than answered. Any number of sound research agendas could be launched from this base, and deserve to be.          A final word on the authors is in order. John C. Smart, as noted above, is a professor of higher education at the University of Memphis. Kenneth A. Feldman is a professor of sociology at SUNY-Stony Brook. Corinna A. Ethington is a professor of educational research, also at Memphis. The strength of this collaboration is obvious in the extensive consideration of existing literature, the broad and ambitious reach of the project across disciplinary lines, and the soundness of the methods of analysis through which the data and assumptions are considered. The book deserves to be warmly regarded in each of these specializations, and as a source for those concerned about and willing to rethink the fundamental assumptions of higher education and the institutions that serve it. About the Reviewer Marc Cutright is communications director for the Center for Social Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University. He is editor of Chaos Theory & Higher Education: Leadership, Planning, and Policy, to be published later this year by Peter Lang Publishing.

Burbules, Nicholas C. and Callister Jr., Thomas A. (2000). Watch IT: The risks and promises of information technology for education. Reviewed by Lynda Tisa and Eugene Matusov, University of Delaware

Burbules, Nicholas C. and Callister Jr., Thomas A. (2000). Watch IT: The risks and promises of information technology for education. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Pp. xiii, 188. $23.00 (Paper)          ISBN: 0-8133-9082-6 Reviewed by Lynda Tisa, University of Delaware and         Eugene Matusov, University of Delaware February 20, 2001          This interesting book by two prominent philosophers of education, Nicholas Burbules and Thomas Callister, opens with the assertion that we need to change our thinking about technology in education. Instead of considering whether technology is bad or good for education, the authors focus on how technology is used in education, by whom and for what purposes. Technological advances are accepted as part of our day-to-day lives, and so educators have been already thrown in or will be thrown into use of information technology. The authors believe that technology has become indispensable to emergent and as yet unforeseen forces in the educational process.          Since the technology is here to stay, we need a critical view of the uses of technology. The authors propose three challenges to the conventional thinking about using technology. First, they question the phrase "informational technology" as being too passive. Traditionally, the word "information" is often related to the transmission and acquisition of facts. However, as the authors argue, information is actively searched, encountered, selected, interpreted, constructed, and filtered though links and hyperlinks on the internet. Second, the authors propose a relational view of technology that acknowledges the changes that it has brought to our culture, social interactions and institutions. Third, the authors argue for a "post-technocratic" perspective that anticipates emergent ways of utilizing, benefitting from and also problems associated with using the technologies. "Technocratic" approaches to information technology assume either technological determinism (i.e., technology is either inherently good or inherently bad) or technological voluntarism (i.e., it is entirely up to technology designers and users to define how to use the technology and what will be its consequences). A "post-technocratic" perspective anticipates and critically reviews these new emerging aspects as well as it expects a transformation of the criteria for the critique themselves. These three challenges provide a basis for the themes of the next seven chapters.          Chapter 2 provides thought provoking issues of the debate and definitions concerning access to the information technology and the credibility of the accessed information. The issues of access include the ability to find resources, time to spend on-line, and deploying strategies for using what is accessed. The issue of credibility focuses on how to discern and evaluate the information the user receives on line. The authors argue that a proper definition of access needs to be thoughtful and critical, and that we must discuss the quality as well as quantity of access. The authors (p. 22) remind us that there are important social, cultural, and economic dimensions to access in poorer societies and communities. The analysis of access extends to a focus on the educational dimensions of the knowledge, skills and dispositions that are amassed for an understanding of the technology. The implications for educators are serious because low quality access can drive a wedge between the haves and have-nots in society.          Questions of access and credibility are addressed in the context of effective access. The authors discuss the need to develop the capacity to read selectively, evaluate and question information on line, as well as user's own goal of using the information. The authors call this capability "hyper-reading." This skill includes learning to make connections, to question the "links" that are provided, and to question what is absent on the internet, what is the purpose of the information, and what are one's own goals in the interaction.          Chapter 3 looks at hypertext as a kind of informational environment that allows for linear as well as nonlinear connections among ideas. Since hypertexts are more complex, the issue of developing capabilities to a more active reading and understanding of the information becomes an educational dilemma. The rate of change and growth of this technology is exponential and requires enhanced cognitive skills to manage and use it. The effect could be that from one generation to the next, the standards of competence accelerate as the technology moves forward. Educators may find themselves occasionally needing the assistance of the younger generations who are more familiarity with the latest advances. This could transform the role of the educator and the dynamics of classroom interactions. The cognitive aspect makes for a learning environment where information, materials, and ideas are linked together in multiple ways. This new organization of information influences the way knowledge is processed. The user needs augmented critical capabilities in order effectively to use the new technologies.          Chapter 4 discusses the need for users to be able to critique the information they access on the internet. The authors argue that the ability to evaluate the information one can access requires differing levels of critical judgment. The authors explore two kinds of readers: critical readers, and hyper-readers. The critical user has a specific question or goal when accessing the internet. Critical users gather information, select, evaluate and judge it in relation to their predetermined needs. Hyper-readers are more willing to transform their own purposes as they build links and connections among new information. Hyper-readers are also able to read across links, and they can use links in ways that can redefine, enhance or otherwise alter the information presented. Under such conditions, of paramount importance are the criteria by which we make judgments about the information we access on the internet. Hyper-textual reading has nonlinear and lateral associations; readers need to adjust to this transformed way of reading.          While the authors correctly reveal the nonlinear nature of the organization of much of the information on the internet, and also pointing out difficulties that some users may have in learning this non-linearity, in our view they do not seem to critically consider who precisely these users are. Some cultures in US and outside may find adjusting to this type of text less of a concern. Unlike in a US mainstream Anglo culture with its predominant linear organization of reading and writing, many other cultures have predominantly nonlinear ways of organizing ideas (Kaplan, 1966). Other languages involve different sorts of linearities in, for example, print and paper media. For example, when we look at Chinese, reading involves vertical relationships rather than those that are horizontal, as in English and many other languages. It also has a nonlinear narrative organization. Chinese is the world's most popular language and China the world's most populous country. And its internet connectivity is rapidly expanding. The current dominance of English on the internet may in time give way to Chinese and other languages. Consistent with such developments, the internet will ultimately have more cross cultural interactions, textual multiplicities, and various ways of disseminating information. The internet could potentially connect all the people in the world, thereby potentially challenging the linear orientation that currently predominates.          Chapter 5 looks at the questions of censorship and continues to examine how encouraging critical reading of the internet can help minimize objectionable material. This analysis of the web net moves into areas of surveillance and privacy issues. Chapter 6 discusses the implication of surveillance technology for notions of privacy. This is an issue that concerns educators because students have so little privacy, and as the classroom becomes wired, students could be further screened and scrutinized. While many people view the loss of privacy as a "tradeoff," the real question for educators and their students may be the rights of consent or refusal in cyberspace. So far, emerging mainstream approaches of dealing with the issue are technological or organizational censorship of the internet. The authors propose the alternative, pedagogical, approach of sharing adults' concerns about the perceived dangers of the internet and engaging children in finding a collective solution of the problem.          Chapter 7 looks at the effects of the commercialization of the internet on teachers and their classrooms. Students are exposed to advertisements on web sites that may use style over substance to gain popularity and receive return visits. The authors examine these and other blurrings of boundaries between education and business. Technology companies are offering hardware and software to schools in exchange for the right to show students their commercials. Should educators mingle such commercial interests with the classroom and its impressionable youth? Is this "the mingling of yarn of good and ill" (as the authors quote Shakespeare)? The authors argue that "advertisements foster a cultural of seduction where popular appeal and appearance can become of greater importance than content" (p. 143). This is an issue every educational institution will face; and how they come to terms with this difficult and conflicting situation will no doubt have a long-term effect on how technology is used and presented to the next generation of students. The authors come to grips with one of the major innovations and changes in the history of pedagogy and how to balance the need for "free" technology with the educational needs of the student. This section should be required reading for every administrator, teacher and decision-maker, who should then use it as a starting point for further discussion of this crucial topic. The last chapter examines the types of community that are possible on the internet. The authors state that the internet is too decentralized to be a community, but could be called "meta-community": a set of different communicative spaces and communities that exist side-by-side. The genesis of such meta-communities will slowly but steadily affect teachers, schools and instruction in the future. A community is often defined as a spatial or territorial unit of social groupings in which people have a feeling of belonging and a sense of identity. But communities also influence who our friends will be, define social standards, shape our worldview, and exercise formal and informal social controls. The implication for these communities could lead to many of the problems we already face within urban environments. Where size can limit people from getting to know how each other, there can be spatial segregation, based on social class, lifestyle, economics, race, and ethnicity. If these "meta-communities" exist side by side, users could become insensitive to the events around them, restricting their attention to their primary group. Internet-mediated attachments could therefore lead to feelings of alienation from already-existing communities. In order to avoid this alienation there is a need for reflection on how to build a sense of interdependence within the "meta-community."          This book will inform those best described as critical users. We found that that it addresses many of the institutional and perspectival challenges presented by the new technologies, particularly concerning issues such as student privacy and the commercialization of the internet. However, it seems to us that the book falls short in exploring the dramatic sociological, economic, and political changes and challenges educators will face due to technological advance. Although the authors provide many examples and illustrations of their points, it is unclear where their experience with use of information technology in education comes from (i.e., the methodology they used). It is a bit too generic and neglects important particularities. For example, the book only briefly discusses the "digital divide" phenomenon, the fact that information technology is not distributed evenly throughout society or the world.          In general, the authors raise many provocative issues but they offer few creative solutions. There are also some troubling omissions. For example, among other interesting new educational applications of technology left out of the book, they omit from their analysis the spreading use of classroom websites covered by a password for educational rather than commercial or strictly gatekeeping purposes. More significantly, we wish the authors had explored more fully what new roles the teacher may assume vis-à-vis this new and perpetually rapidly changing technology. It also would have been interesting had the authors more critically assessed their own sympathy for critical thinking and hyper- reading as value-laden criteria, thereby situating their chosen values in the sociocultural and political circumstances of their own lives and communities.          The dialogue about the new information technology, its users, the changes it is bringing to schools and the reorientation or our classrooms is a serious one. This book certainly raised thought-provoking questions that should be of concern to any educator. We highly recommend this book to educators, designers of the information technology and scholars of education and information technology. Reference Kaplan, R. B. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education. Language Learning, 16(1), 1-20.

Hayes, Elizabeth; Flannery, Daniele D. with Brooks, Ann; Tisdell, Elizabeth; and Hugo, Jane. (2000). Women as Learners: The Significance of Gender in Adult Learning. Reviewed by Richard W. Race, Keele University

Hayes, Elizabeth; Flannery, Daniele D. with Brooks, Ann; Tisdell, Elizabeth; and Hugo, Jane. (2000). Women as Learners: The Significance of Gender in Adult Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers Pp. xxiii + 280 $36.95 (Cloth)   ISBN 0-7879-0920-3 Reviewed by Richard W. Race, Keele University February 26, 2001          Women as Learners was particularly interesting to me because of my experience as a part-time lecturer and tutor in the subjects of Education and Applied Social Science within an English university. The majority of the students I teach are women; how women learn and their experiences of education are, therefore, issues directly related to my practice as an educator. The book, which grounds its arguments in poststructural feminist theory, aims to synthesize what is known about adult women's learning.          The text is organized into nine chapters, each provided by one or more of the book's contributing authors. Although the discussion focuses primarily on learning, it encompasses a wider social and cultural appreciation of the problems women face. The authors—all white middle-class women with high levels of academic training and experience—nevertheless use their personal histories to highlight the diversity of women's experiences of education. Using a poststructural feminist perspective as the predominant framework for analysis, the authors examine issues related to adult women's ways of knowing, sources and applications of knowledge, and modes of communicating. In addition, several chapters direct attention to the way women's learning influences the formation of their identities.          Daniele D. Flannery and Elisabeth Hayes begin the book with "Women's Learning: a Kaleidoscope," which argues that instructional practice in adult education continues to reflect a limited understanding of how women learn. According to the authors, this situation persists despite increases in the number of women participating in adult education. Moreover, the authors discuss the difficulties associated with gaining full understanding of women's learning. In particular, they explore the way gender and culture interact to produce multiple approaches to learning. Navajo women, for example, situate learning within the context of the family; they are not inclined to seek or endorse learning meant to promote individual success, possibly at the expense of the strength and continuity of the family. Because of women's multiple ways of knowing, the authors believe that educators ought to ground research efforts in women's narratives about their own learning, going beyond the limited images of "reentry" women. The authors ask, "reentering" from where? "From someplace beyond the known world?" (p. 7) These and other perspectives depict women as marginalized, deficient, or invisible.          The first chapter also frames theoretical distinctions useful for understanding the analyses presented throughout the rest of the book. The authors explain that three different theoretical approaches can be used to make sense of women's ways of knowing: psychological feminist theories, structural feminist theories, and, poststructural feminist theories.          Psychological feminist theories build on Belenky and associates' work (1986), which argued that women's learning differs from men's learning both in terms of its developmental sequence and in terms of its underlying epistemology. According to these researchers, women prefer to learn in collaborative rather than competitive settings, and they view knowledge more as a set of connections than as a set of distinctions. For these reasons, women may benefit from an instructional method—the authors call it, "connected teaching"—that differs from the dominant, male-oriented approach. Critics of psychological feminism contend, however, that its theories tend to over- generalize, obscuring important variations in the approaches to learning favored by different women, especially those from different racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds.          Structural feminist theory focuses on social structures, notably patriarchy and capitalism that oppress women. Theorists in this tradition emphasize the dominating influence of these social structures, but by doing so they also tend to construe women as passive. Despite their somewhat deterministic view of women's circumstances, structural feminists nevertheless call for resistance toward the mechanisms in families, schools, and workplaces that serve to reproduce oppressive relations of power.          Poststructural feminist theory construes power relations in more complex terms, focusing on multiple systems of oppression, possibilities for resistance, and ways that relations of power work to shape women's identities. The authors argue that this theoretical approach is productive because it draws attention to the complexity of women's lived experiences while at the same time revealing opportunities for women to renegotiate gender-based relations of power. Yet this theoretical perspective can become overly abstract, making it less useful in drawing implications for practice or policy. The authors credit the contributions of all three perspectives in developing an understanding of women's learning. However, their perspective is most closely aligned with the poststructural approach , which they call upon often throughout the remainder of the book.          In a chapter titled, "Social Contexts," Elisabeth Hayes examines women's learning within various contexts, such as formal education, the home, community organizations, the school, the workplace, and so on. She argues that different contexts provide different opportunities for women to learn and to shape their identities. Women can garner the strength to resist domination by drawing on the opportunities afforded by the most liberating contexts for learning available to them.          To illustrate this point, Hayes tells the story of Marilyn, an African American woman who became pregnant and then married at the age of 17. Within the context of a traditional home life, Marilyn felt stifled. When her husband forced her to quit college shortly after she enrolled, she engaged in Bible study and began a door-to-door ministry, which afforded her the opportunity to learn about international affairs. When her husband objected to these activities as well, she divorced him and entered the world of work to support her three children. In her work as a technician for a phone company she gained both technical skill and a firsthand view of racism in promotion and hiring practices. Her growing dissatisfaction and despair led her to attempt suicide. Later, however, she decided to go back to school, where she was able to explore her interest in literature and develop her talents as a writer. Divorcing her husband but staying deeply involved with her children, Marilyn was able to forge a meaningful identity situated in her family, workplace, and community.          Despite the opportunities that certain contexts offer for the development of women's potential, many contexts pose serious constraints to their learning. According to Hayes, many girls internalize negative messages as a result of the dynamics they observe and the roles they are expected to perform within their families of origin. Once they reach school age, girls continue to receive messages that limit their opportunities. Tracking arrangements in high schools, for example, restrict the learning environments accessible to girls, especially those from working class backgrounds. Furthermore, Hayes notes, adult literacy teachers—many of whom, ironically, tend to be well-intentioned women—typically come from more privileged backgrounds than their students. Lacking experiences similar to those of their students, these educators are often insensitive to concerns such as students' need for safe learning environments or their desire to use some school time simply for socializing. The conventional workplace also places restrictions on women's development. "Women's work," notes Hayes, lacks both status and adequate remuneration (p. 34). And many women fail to rise to their full potential at work because of the gender-segregation typical of many places of employment.          When women pursue higher education they often find their schooling in conflict with their family and home lives. To illustrate this point, Hayes reminds the reader of the storyline of the popular 1983 film, "Educating Rita." In the film, Rita breaks out of the restrictive roles imposed by a conventional marriage in order to pursue her education. Initially relying on the support of her instructor, Frank Bryant, Rita eventually breaks free from his thrall as well. Ultimately, Rita learns to take responsibility for her own destiny.          In part, self-determination depends on self-esteem, as Daniele D. Flannery suggests in the chapter titled, "Identity and Self Esteem." According to Flannery, identity formation constitutes an important type of learning, although it is not always regarded as such. In the conventional view, identities are shaped by internal psychological forces and by external social forces. Women's experiences in the home, at school, and in the workplace are typically viewed as the conditions that determine their identities. By seeing identity formation as a type of learning, however, one comes to realize that women do have some conscious control over their own identities. As Flannery argues, "women are not just passive recipients of...societal prescriptions; rather, they are often very proactive, choosing change" (pp. 67-68). Women have opportunities to learn, unlearn, and relearn who they are. Shaping their own identities through active processes of learning, women come to develop the self-esteem necessary to accomplish what they want to accomplish in the world.          Being oneself in the world has a great deal to do with "voice," as Elisabeth Hayes explains in the next chapter. "Voice" connotes both the ability to make connections with other people and the skill to express thoughts in ways that can be understood by others. Hayes explores voice along three dimensions: as talk, as an expression of identity, and as collective power and influence. In considering voice as talk, Hayes identifies two modes: (1) rapport talk, a communication style (favored by women) that relies on personal narrative to establish and maintain relationships and (2) report talk, a communication style (often favored by men) that establishes power within relationships. Rapport talk is conversational, with the participants actively listening and exchanging experiences and strengthening relationships. Talk in higher education tends mostly to be report talk. In this mode, some students present their arguments convincingly and in absolute terms, while other students engage in "ritual opposition," seeking to detect weaknesses in the arguments. The hoped-for result is the clarification of ideas and the strengthening of arguments. Of course, students unaccustomed to such a dialectical approach may find the experience unnerving. Class discussion that takes the form of "blood sport" can erode their confidence and eventually make them decide to remain silent.          Hayes suggests that talk in the classroom needs to strike a balance between report talk and rapport talk. She contrasts this perspective with one that simply favors the practice of teaching women to become more adept at report talk. Her concern with the latter approach is that it ignores an important benefit of women's more tentative approach, namely its sensitivity to multiple sides of an issue. Helping women make better use of report talk, however, might enable them to exercise their voices more effectively in work and academic settings. In the end, Hayes points out the wisdom of efforts to expand the talking-style repertoire of both men and women.          Hayes concludes the chapter with the reminder that there are multiple voices and multiple identities that need to be honored in all learning environments. Because domination by one cultural voice should be resisted, adult educators ought to examine the connection between voice and power in their classrooms, workplaces, and other sites in which teaching and learning take place. Hayes argues that the best solution is to strive for collective voice and shared power. And she asks the following question to foster thinking about ways to realize such a solution in practice: "How might we support women in developing individual and group voices?" (p. 109)          Flannery's chapter titled "Connection" begins by pointing out the distinction, often overlooked, between knowing and learning. Knowing is an interpretive framework constructed internally by a process of integrating learning with personal histories, worldviews, experiences, and so forth. Flannery urges readers to be mindful of this difference—first drawn by Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986)—as they engage with the literature she reviews on women as connected learners. She explores the idea of connected learning along two dimensions: connections with/in the self and connection with others. An understanding of how women connect learning with/in themselves is enriched by research and theory drawn from the disciplines of psychology, social psychology, and neurology. Research on cognitive styles, for example, often characterizes women as global processors, that is, people who tend to derive meaning from new information or new situations by attempting to understand them holistically, attempting to "perceive the overall patterns and structures of what they are learning" (p. 115).          A similar perspective was presented in the research of Belenky and colleagues who discussed women's capacity for subjective knowing, that is, for "knowing from within, or from one's inner voice" (p. 116). When they come to know something in this way, women rely upon their own sense or feeling of what is true. Women, however, often find their inner voices at odds with the types of knowledge-construction privileged in the academy.          Flannery also does a thorough job of describing the literature on women's learning as connection with others, including learning via interactions and relationships – that is, women's tendency to value the knowledge that comes from their own and others' personal experiences. In her discussion of intuition, Flannery reminds the reader of the "patriarchal" distrust of this sort of "nonrational" knowing. In fact, according to Flannery, this type of knowing has been discredited at least since the beginning of the "age of reason" and perhaps even before that, when reason was thought to be disconnected from feeling, and mind from body. Today, however, researchers are seriously investigating the nature of intuition from physiological, psychological, sociological, social-psychological, anthropological, and political perspectives. Flannery briefly reviews insights provided from all of these vantage points.          Ann Brooks'chapter, "Transformation," examines how language and story can kindle transformative learning in women's lives. Transformative learning changes learners' structures of meaning, including their beliefs, feelings, interpretations of events, and even their expectations for their own lives. This form of learning has commonly been understood to involve a highly rational, abstract process effectuated by challenging the texts (and other messages) students have internalized from their families and the broader culture. Drawing on her own experience with a small group of female doctoral students, however, Brooks construes transformative learning somewhat differently. She explains that the sharing of narratives (rather than the abstract analysis of texts) helps women derive new meaning from experiences that had previously been confusing or inaccessible. By uncovering the common elements of their experiences, women can find ways to resist messages from the institutions that often subordinate their knowledge. This approach enables women to challenge the hegemony of the academy.          Involvement with a support group can empower women to work and learn with a sense of integrity, helping them to remain true to their understanding of complex situations and to give voice to those understandings. Foucault, for example, argued that subjugated knowledge has been written out of history because history has been constructed as a way to promote the dominant discourse. Storytelling can liberate subjugated knowledge by establishing relational intimacy, enabling women to gain their voices and take action. Brooks concludes that while there are differences amongst women, based on race, sex and class, "... all of us are victims of silence" (p. 153).          Elizabeth Tisdell, in "Feminist Pedagogies" traces the development of feminist methods of teaching based on psychological, structural, and poststructural models. She begins by tipping her hat to Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule, describing their groundbreaking study in the mid 1980s as epitomizing "the psychological models of how women come to know and learn" (p. 163). In fact, most of the chapters in this volume use this study as a starting point, and proceed by reviewing literature that has either expanded on or critiqued it in the subsequent 15 years.          According to Tisdell, four of the five themes commonly discussed in contemporary feminist pedagogy draw upon Belenky and associates' early work: women's construction of knowledge, their development of voice, their quest for authority, and their ever-evolving identity. The psychological approach focuses on individual experience—primarily the experience of white middle-class women—and seeks evidence of similarities among women. Subsequent work has investigated a fifth theme in feminist pedagogy, the experiences of "marginalized groups" such as working class women, women of color, and lesbian and bisexual women.          Structural feminist pedagogy developed along a parallel track during the same time period as the psychological approach, inspired primarily by the work of Brazilian critical educator, Paulo Freire. Freire was concerned with structural sources of oppression and privilege. He, bell hooks, and others examined the appropriate uses of authority, urging the sharing of authority while at the same time acknowledging that authority cannot be abandoned entirely in an educational setting.          Tisdell then moves into the main focus of her chapter, poststructural feminist pedagogy, an approach that draws on psychological and structural models, but extends beyond them. In particular, poststructural feminist pedagogy highlights the positionality of learners and instructors and engages them in a quest for emancipation. Tisdell provides a brief general discussion of postmodern and poststructuralist theories, arguing that all versions of these theories engage in deconstruction of the ways individuals have been socialized to construct various features of their identities, especially features related to class, race, and gender. She draws a further distinction between "ludic" postmodernism—generally the domain of elite academics who focus almost entirely on deconstructing language—and "resistance" postmodernism, which focuses on "the resistance of particular marginalized groups while remaining mindful of the danger of absolutizing any particular category" (p. 170). Tisdell concludes the chapter by showing how feminist pedagogy's five major themes are understood by postmodern and poststructuralist thinkers.          In a chapter titled, "Perspectives on Practice," Jane Hugo argues that, although women form a numerical majority in the postindustrial workforce, adult education has been slow to integrate feminist research. In this chapter, which speaks most concretely to issues of practice, Hugo reviews and elaborates on the work of Pratt and associates (1998), focusing on ways to connect a gender-based analysis to these authors' insights about adult education. As Hugo notes, Pratt and associates outline five different primary commitments, claiming that every adult educators holds at least one of these as his or her perspective on practice. These commitments concern: (1) effective delivery of content, (2) apprenticeship, (3) cultivating ways of thinking, (4) developing self-efficacy, and (5) creating a better society. For each of these five perspectives, Hugo explains how insights from feminist pedagogy can enhance women's learning and adult educators' efficacy as teachers. Acknowledging that it is "easier to think about women as learners than to do something with our knowledge" (p. 211), Hugo reports that recent studies show a widespread resistance among adult educators and curriculum developers to openly discuss in classroom or training situations, scenarios featuring gender roles or sexism. Moreover, such studies demonstrate the overwhelming dominance of curriculum content for adults that is decontextualized and monologic.          In the final chapter, "Creating Knowledge about Women's Learning," Hayes reiterates the need to question old beliefs and assumptions and to build new knowledge about women's learning. She warns of the danger of pitting men's learning needs against those of women. For Hayes, gender affects all aspects of women's learning. Moreover, in her view, the discourse on adult learning is permeated by sexist and racist assumptions. In reaction to this prevailing discourse, Hayes exhorts critics to expose the biases of as well as to reframe dominant (male-focused) theories of adult learning. From her perspective, adult learning theories need to incorporate more inclusive understandings of identity formation and diversity among women. Hayes concludes that gender studies ought to have an important place in all research about learning, explaining that by "making women's learning more visible as a legitimate and important topic for understanding, we can all contribute to building new knowledges to inform teaching, learning and living" (p. 243).         To be honest, I found the book a real challenge. I felt swamped by the ideological nature of some of the arguments and wondered if the insights offered really required such a densely theoretical treatment. Moreover, I thought the contributing editors made a strategic error by assuming that the target audience would primarily include women. From my perspective, the book needs to be read and comprehended by men as well as women.         As a male reader of the book, I found that the arguments presented in the book caused my own ideas about gender to change in significant ways. I now understand that gender dynamics are much more complex than I originally had imagined. And I now have a better understanding of why adult education has been slow to integrate feminist research. Personally, the book has given me an increased awareness of some of the problems women face within the education system and society in general. I have, as Hayes suggests in the postscript of the book, started in a meaningful way "to think of women's learning and lives" (p. 250). Note This review was produced under the editorship of Aimee Howley, Ohio University. The reviewer would like to thank Pat Hammer of Ohio University for her editorial assistance with the manuscript. References Belenky, M.F. Clinchy, B.M. Goldberger, N.R. Traule, J. (1986) Women's ways of knowing: the development of self, voice and mind. New York, Mind Books. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings. New York: Pantheon. Freire, P. (1971). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder. Freire, P. (1972). Cultural action for freedom. Harmondsworth, England.: Penguin. hooks, b. (1989). Talking back: Thinking feminist, thinking Black. Boston: South End Press. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress. New York: Routledge. Pratt, D. D. and Associates. (1998). Five perspectives in teaching in adult and higher education. Malabar, FL: Krieger. Film Source Rank Video. (1983). Educating Rita. London: Acorn Pictures.