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  • Publication
    Review of R.V. Kail, Jr. and J.W. Hagen (Eds.), Perspectives on the Development of Memory and Cognition, and D.G. Bobrow and A. Collins (Eds.), Representation and Understanding: Studies in Cognitive Science
    (1978) Wagner, Daniel A
    The use of narrative and other prose forms as a tool for investigating mental processes is not new. Psychologists such as Jean Piaget and F.C. Bartlett both used stories in research on complex cognitive skills in children and adults. However, with the advent of Ebbinghaus' monumental work on memory using "non-sense syllables," theoretical psychology turned away from the use of meaningful material. With the use of nonsense syllables, researchers hoped to isolate the variables of memory and individual content associations. Recently, there has been a renewal of interest in the study of narrative and memory due to the recognition that narrative taps certain processes that syllables and isolated words do not. In addition, narrative and memory studies have generated interest among those researchers concerned with the applicability of memory studies to educational settings.
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    On Being an Adolescent in Zawiya. Review of Susan S. Davis and Douglas A. Davis, Adolescence in a Moroccan Towan: Making Social Sense
    (1991) Wagner, Daniel A; Puchner, Laurel Diana
    Although adolescence is a well-accepted stage of life in Western society, the issue of whether it exists as a separate life stage in all cultures remains an open and important question. As part of the cross-cultural Harvard Adolescence Project directed by Beatrice and John Whiting, this book is an assessment of traditional concepts of adolescence in Morocco. Based on 11 months of intensive fieldwork, as well as multiple years of work in the same village, the authors used ethnographic observation, interviews, and psychological testing to collect a wide array of data on about 50 families including 150 children in the rural Moroccan town of Zawiya. Recurring themes in the lives of these adolescents, including maturity, self-awareness, gender, hierarchy, and ambivalence, are interwoven into a discussion of the basic social organization of Moroccan life.
  • Publication
    Review of James Wilce, Eloquence in Trouble
    (2001-03-01) Wortham, Stanton
    In Eloquence in Trouble James Wilce describes how a particular speech genre is practiced in rural Bangladesh: "troubles talk," in which people lament some misfortune that has befallen them. Wilce describes how the language of laments has more than referential functions. Speakers do represent their misfortunes in lamenting them, but Wilce argues that these speakers also simultaneously reveal and shape their identities, engage in strategic interactions with interlocutors, and sometimes resist oppressive social orders. Using data from almost six years of work in Bangladesh and a substantial corpus of videorecorded troubles talk, Wilce convincingly demonstrates that laments serve multiple social and interactional functions.
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  • Publication
    Literacy Campaigns: Past, Present, and Future. Review of Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff (Eds.), National Literacy Campaigns: Historical and Comparative Aspects; Paulo Freire and Donaldo Macedo, Literacy: Reading the Word and the World; Ali Hamadache and Daniel Martin, Theory and Practice of Literacy Work: Policies, Strategies and Examples
    (1989-05-01) Wagner, Daniel A
    The topic of literacy seems to be returning to the top of the development agenda. Since the 1960s, with UNESCO's Experimental World Literacy Programme (EWLP), there has been a drift away from large-scale literacy programs for development, if not in the minds of Third World educators, then at least in the minds of development planners in major policy-making centers such as the World Bank, UN agencies, and bilateral funding agencies. Perhaps this was due to the problems of EWLP (described in A. Gillette's chapter in Arnove & Graff) or simply to economists' reactions to literacy as a "basic human right," which may have struck policymakers as not sufficiently linked to development outcomes such as economic growth, improved agricultural practices, and so forth. At least part of the resurgence of interest in literacy stems from the realization that illiteracy is not just a Third World problem; attention to and research on illiteracy in North American and Europe have been growing rapidly over the past several years (see L. Limage's chapter in Arnove & Graff).1 The present volumes are primarily focused on the "campaign" and mass education dimensions of literacy. Each volume addresses national and international efforts to achieve greater literacy among adult populations, principally in Third World countries.
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    Review of Ron Scollon and Suzie Wong Scollon, Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet
    (2006-02-01) Wortham, Stanton
    This ambitious and rewarding book combines aspects of several genres. It is a methodological guidebook, offering strategies for doing ethnography, discourse analysis and action research. It is an empirical report, describing the authors' use of email and other resources to improve Native Alaskans' access to higher education from 1978-1983. It is a theoretical account of how "people, places, discourses and objects" come together to facilitate action and social change. It also offers a theoretical sketch and empirical illustration of computer mediated communication. The book does not provide a full methodological, empirical or theoretical account, but focuses instead on the nexus of these components. The theory of social action undergirds the methodological suggestions, and the empirical material illustrates both the theory and the methodology.
  • Publication
    Accelerated Schools for At-Risk Students
    (2017-08-21) Levin, Henry
    Outlines features of an “Accelerated School,” a transitional elementary school designed to bring disadvantaged students up to grade level by the end of sixth grade. Several schools across the nation are piloting the model.
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    Retaining African Americans in Higher Education: Challenging Paradigms for Retaining Students, Faculty, and Administrators (Review)
    (2002-09-01) Perna, Laura W
    Retaining African Americans in Higher Education is a timely and novel approach to a critical topic. Edited by Lee Jones, associate dean for academic affairs and instruction in the College of Education and associate professor in Educational Leadership at Florida State University, the volume contains 14 chapters, a preface, a conclusion, and two personal reflections that describe issues related to the retention of African American students, administrators, and faculty at predominantly white colleges and universities. “Written about African Americans, by African Americans” (p. xii), this book is recommended by a white woman for higher education administrators, faculty, researchers, and policymakers of all racial and ethnic groups.
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    Review of Robert W. Rieber and Aaron S. Carton, Collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, Volumes 3 and 4
    (1998-06-01) Wortham, Stanton
    Since it branched off from philosophy in the 19th century, psychology has had a troubled, dual nature. Some have envisioned another natural science, one that offers causal explanations for behavior. Others have envisioned a humanistic science, one that offers context-specific descriptions of meaningfulness in human experience. The first group reduces behavior to natural mechanisms. The second insists that humanity be described in intentional or spiritual terms. Writing in the 1920s and '30s, Lev Vygotsky claimed that this split within psychology had created a crisis because it had prevented the field from gaining wide acceptance like the natural sciences. Although progress has been made over the past 70 years, Vygotsky's description rings uncomfortably true today.