J Youth Adolescence (2008) 37:486–487 DOI 10.1007/s10964-007-9242-y
BOOK REVIEW
Susan J. Paik, Herbert J. Walberg (eds): Narrowing the Achievement Gap: Strategies for Educating Latino, Black, and Asian Students Springer, NY, 2007, 210 pp, ISBN 978-0-387-44609-7 Troy E. Beckert
Published online: 2 November 2007 ! Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007
Susan J. Paik and Herbert J. Walberg, editors of Narrowing the Achievement Gap: Strategies for Educating Latino, Black, and Asian Students, assemble papers from a national invitational conference that focused on the importance of education for minority children. The book is organized in three parts that deal with (a) culturally diverse families and schooling; (b) histories, issues of immigration, and schooling experiences; and (c) socio-cultural issues on teaching, learning, and development. Each part contains a separate chapter dealing with issues for students from Latino, Black, and Asian backgrounds. The purpose of the conference and subsequent book was to unite interdisciplinary scholars, practitioners, and policy makers in understanding the achievement gap for each of the three largest minority groups in the United States from multiple perspectives and varied theoretical foundations. This purpose was founded on the belief that research should be useful to scholars, educators, and those who influence policy. Generations of research on racial disparity in academic achievement have failed to produce solutions to close the gap between ethnically diverse populations (Lynch 2006). Until the 21st Century, federal policy initiatives focused on reducing disparity (especially financial) across schools. However, a significant shift in federal policy to address disparity within schools resulted in the adoption of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in (2001) (Stiefel et al. 2006). This shift again focused the spotlight on the achievement gap specific to the major groups of ethnic minority students (Hursh 2007). While some improvements in test scores have been observed (Romney 2003), the T. E. Beckert (&) Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA e-mail:
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achievement gap continues to exist for most minority groups (Noguera and Wing 2006). The authors of this book’s chapters seek to expand the readers’ appreciation for the variance within each minority distinction. This book contributes to the study of adolescence by addressing the major issues confronting each ethnic group separately. In this manner, the emerging themes become evident within Latino, Black, and Asian groups and it takes us conceptually closer to understanding the complexity of the achievement gap. It is interesting to note that while most literature on this topic focuses its work along the lines of ‘‘closing’’ the achievement gap, this work chose a more attainable goal of ‘‘narrowing’’ the gap. The first part of the book examines the challenges of fostering family involvement in schools. Concha DelgadoGaitan presents a qualitative approach to fostering Latino parent involvement in schools. Her recommendations that effective intervention programs empower mothers and provide adequate college exposure to youth are based on her observations and interactions with 20 girls whose parents immigrated from Mexico and Central America to Southern California. Ronald D. Taylor focused on the role of parents on the social-emotional development and school achievement of African American youth. He used the family economic stress model to demonstrate that many of the achievement problems of young black children are linked to their families’ economic resources. While the family economic stress model has merit, it is unclear from the chapter if the implication is unique to African American youth or could be applied to all children of poverty. Valerie Ooka Pang concludes the first section by using Bronfenbrenner’s model to examine the differences within Asian American subgroups as they relate to cultural capital. She used past literature to explain how human ecology differs within the Asian American population. Her
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recommendations could tie back to Bronfenbrenner’s model to provide a more useful application of the important information provided in the chapter for each subgroup of Asian American youth. The second part of the book teases out the contextual importance of history and immigration issues as they relate to schooling experiences. Ream and Stanton-Salazar used a social capital theory to explain potentially important issues involving mobility within the Latino culture as they relate to low student achievement scores. Their contention is that family transience reduces the social capital of young people and thus leads to lower achievement scores. Rong and Brown address an often overlooked issue within the black community. They consider differences in educational attainment of immigrant and non-immigrant young blacks. They cite cultural differences between the two groups specific to academic performance and present as evidence of these differences analysis of Census data from 2000. They recommend that separate strategies be employed for immigrant black youth from those advised for non-immigrant African American youth. As was the case from the first section, Zhou, the author of the chapter addressing Asian issues in this part of the book, expounded on the fallacy of the ‘‘model minority.’’ This notion implies that all Asian students excel in the classroom. Zhou’s argument is that culture interacts with the structure to impact education. Thus, Asian immigrants who come to the United States from a middle social economic status (more common among Chinese, Japanese, and Korean immigrants) will tend to excel economically in this country and likewise their children will excel in school. However, other Asian immigrants who come from unfavorable circumstances to the United States (more common with Vietnamese, Hmong, and Laotian immigrants) will struggle financially and likewise their children will struggle in school. The final part of the book outlines issues of teaching, learning, and development from a socio-cultural perspective. Waxman, Padron, and Garcia provide a thorough summary of the literature that highlighted shortcomings in the educational practices for Hispanic students in the United States. In a similar manner, Thompson highlighted seven areas where school leaders and teachers can improve the schooling experience for African American students. In the final chapter of this section, Lee uses the case of the
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Hmong Americans to explore myths associated with the ‘‘model minority.’’ The primary target audience of the book is researchers, educators and those who influence policy who have an interest in narrowing the achievement gap for Latino, Black, and Asian minority students. In the series preface to the book which addresses issues in children’s and families’ lives, the stated purpose of the series is to gather together scholarly resources to increase the understanding of problems within American cities by including ideas with farreaching implications. Several chapters in this book exemplify the first part of this goal by providing a good review of current literature in the field. Certainly coming closer to understanding the dynamic and complex nature of minority diversity both within and between ethnic groups will assist the second part of the series purpose by providing helpful ideas that have far-reaching implications. It should not be assumed, however, that a single conference and accompanying book can tease out all of the related variables to academic achievement and the gap that exists between minority groups and their white counterparts. Likewise, many of the recommendations remain vague and lack ethnic specificity. Consequently, it appears that the second part of the series purpose was less successful. Nonetheless, the authors do a good job highlighting diversity within racial groups and the implications that are associated with lumping all Latinos, Blacks, or Asians into homogeneous groups.
References Hursh, D. (2007). Exacerbating inequality: The failed promise of the No Child Left Behind Act. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 10, 295–308. Lynch, M. (2006). Closing the racial academic achievement gap. Chicago: African American Images. Noguera P., & Wing J. (eds.) (2006). Unfinished business: Closing the racial achievement gap in our schools. NY: Jossey-Bass. Romney, P. (2003). Closing the achievement gap? Five questions every school should ask. Independent School, 62, 30–52. Stiefle, L., Schwartz, A. E., & Ellen, I. G. (2006). Disentangling the racial test score gap: Probing the evidence in a large urban school district. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 26, 7–30. U.S. Department of Education. (2001). No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Washington, DC.
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