Customer Reviews

Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education, Fourth Edition

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The title of this book is badly mistitled. Although this book is well cited and thoroughly researched, the authors stressed African Americans over all other races. This is a book about multi-cultural education and yet the references were mostly about African Americans. Little research was given to Hispanics, Southeast Asians, Arabs and especially Native Americans. Women and girls are given footnoted references.

I do not disagree that racism does not exist in our schools. There are sound examples of racism in this country, and especially in our public schools where tracking, self-fulfilling prophecies, overuse of Special Education and underuse of Gifted Programs for minorities still happen. The authors blame the educators, though, and not the student who may not care to get an education even when offered. Afterall, Asian Americans seem to succeed in the classroom even though they are often face with the same discrimination as African Americans. Yet they are hardly mentioned or used in comparisons of how diversity CAN succeed in public schools.

Women and girls in this book are vaguely mentioned as "females" which always bothered me. Since girls make up half of the student body and represent unique issues in the classroom, why not grant them more studies to allow them to succeed more?

Although both Nieto and Bode are accomplished educators in high esteem, this book was hard to follow at times and at other times annoying. Many of the points could have been stated in shorter essays in education journals, giving this book somehow an air of "We needed the money so we compiled all these studies into one book!"

Don't get me wrong, though, as there were some good points mentioned in this book. Chapter 4, "Racism, Discrimination and Expectations of Students Achievement" was an eye opener.

I agree with a previous reviewer who stated that the authors should have used more Hispanic studies in their multicultural education studies. This book is about MULTI cultures and not just the Black race. For areas in the West and Southwest many of the references to African Americans are muted by the majority of Hispanic students in our schools who are still educated primarily by a white teaching staff.

This book was required reading for a college course. I plan on selling this book back after this semester.

Sonia Nieto has captured the essence of multicultural education because she focuses on real students in real classrooms. She helps teachers and teacher education candidates realize that their goals are the education of all the children in their classrooms and that those most different from the background of the teacher are the ones most in need of multicultural approaches. The goal is student learning, as she points out in her next book, The Light in Their Eyes, Creating Multicultural Learning Communities. I highly recommend this book to any teacher who works with children who speak other first languages than English.

I found this book of little use. The major problems created by using race as the main focus of the book include:
* Race as a subject is so overworked that nearly everyone over eight years of age has come to conclusions about race, the most important and most common of which is "I am not racist." However, given how the human brain works (selective attention, generalization, and others) and how humans interact (tribal affiliation, application of generalizations based on visual input, and so on), prejudice and therefore racism are inevitable: We are all racist whether we think so or not.
* Again, because the issue of race is overworked, the reaction of many people when race is introduced as a subject is, "Not again!" This could be overcome by a unique or fresh approach. Outside of Chapter 7, "Toward an Understanding of School Achievement", nothing new or fresh is provided.

On the positive side, the case studies are well written and well selected. In a different literary context, these case studies could be of immense value. Also, Chapter 7 has value to offer.

Yes, I realize that racial discrimination issues are critical, especially given the level of racial discriminiation that exists in the human family. However, focusing on such discrimination as the root issue has stalled civil rights. It has accomplished pretty much all it is going to accomplish. It is time to recognize that predudice is part of the human condition.

I invite Ms. Nieto or others to write a text based on the biological and sociological roots of prejudice aimed at helping the reader and, in the context of college classes, the student realize their own propensity for prejudice, recognize how it might show up, and correct the issues of their own prejudice as they emerge.

Nieto did a fantastic job handling this subject and I love how challenged I am by it! It really causes you to think very deeply about multicultural education and the sociopolitical factors that come into play.

The case studies are the best part of this text, though. I love the fact that there are follow-ups in the back of the book for several of the kids!

Even if you think you know all there is to know about multicultural education, you will be surprised by how much you learn from this very well-written book.

"Affirming Diversity" is indeed just one of several books to cover the academic marketplace and replenish the income of publishers at the outset of college and university semesters. An eloquent, well-read English major, I find this a tired, highly redundant, painfully un-scintillating read. Race is brought up again and again in full on guilty-liberal mode. Very much is said about the need for teachers to accomodate and make room for differences in students' cultural backgrounds, and while a few intriguing (and, again, in full-on guilty-liberal mode) real-life examples are brought in for context, little to nothing is said about how to successfully carry out optimal accomodation for students of varying backgrounds. The overall idea that is emphasized is to, for lack of a better term, "be mindful" of what certain students bring to the table. It seems, then, that the test of a future teacher's mettle is that he or she successfully finds the message behind this text passe and obvious. We already know this. If this aspect of the profession needs a class textbook - and it is highly doubtful that it does - this certainly is not it.

I just got back from a fight with my sophomore-level education students over this textbook. They have a near-universal opinion that this book says the same things about race, immigration, and language, but in only so many words. Trying to quiz them on what they've read is a nightmare - they're regularly getting 40s, 50s, and 60s on multiple-choice quizzes I give for this book because they can't effectively distinguish between the terms. As a Ph.D. in Social Foundations of Education, I can understand the nuances between the theories and concepts. I'm trying to break down the meaningful differences between, say, Cultural-ecological Theory, Cultural inversion, and Cultural Mismatch Theory, but to your average 19-year-old college student, it's all a blur!

I appreciate the work that Bode and Nieto are trying to accomplish, but I never had problems like this when I used other textbooks with separate chapters on gender, sexuality, disability, and religion in addition to race, ethnicity, and immigration. If your class is all about the latter topics, by all means, use this book. For a sophomore-level multicultural education class, consider other alternatives, or at least other supplementary material.

I own past editions as well as the last edition of this book. Every time Nieto and Bode have done an excellent job researching and writing about a complex topic that very often is simplified and commonly misunderstood. The case studies included bring to life critical issues and provide food for thought that should help generating several productive class discussions if the book is used as textbook. As an individual reader, I appreciate a book that makes me an active participant and that -with the author(s)- helps me reflect about important issues in an informed manner. This book does that. It provides solid research about topics that are critical and sometimes challenging, while it also stays effectively away from offering cookie cutter answers to very important issues. It does justice to multicultural education while appealing to an active and engaged reader. This is a book that I would highly recommend to anyone and that I would always love to have a good discussion about.

The book is nicely laid out and I've gotten great information from it. Some sections are very confusing because of the writing style.

The book was shipped quickly and was recieved in the condition specified. I would certainly do business with the seller agian.

Very interesting book, it is well written and easy to read. With a busy schedule, graduate assignments, required reading assignments are manageable without overwhelming 30 page chapters with the same information over and over restated differently.