This introduction discusses major current challenges in achieving equity, diversity, and democratic access to higher education. It covers new pedagogies in institutions of higher learning that build upon the lived experiences and resources of working-class and historically underrepresented students. Various models for teaching and learning are proposed -- from activism in the academy to community/university reciprocity -- all of which are based on reflection, praxis, and critical thinking.

Key words: educational policy, new pedagogies, youth

Sleeter shows how state control of curricula serves a key ideological function in Western capitalist democracies. She argues that the movement for state standardization of curriculum has ideologically disguised the triumph of market forces in the control of knowledge and the framing of educational goals. The article analyzes a specific, state-mandated History-Social Science Framework, which appears to make multicultural contributions, but in actuality counters the critical scholarship developed by historically marginalized groups. Sleeter concludes by calling on educators to "uncover the deep structure of ideas" underlying state-adopted curriculum and to critically evaluate how the use of national testing is likely to widen gaps along lines of race, class, and gender.

Key words: educational policy, new pedagogies, youth, California -- politics and government, colonialism, education -- United States, ethnicity -- United States, group identity, knowledge

Gandin and Apple look beyond the U.S. to examine how negotiating local control of schooling can be a powerful force of resistance against the market-economy paradigm of education. In general, education in Brazil is highly centralized and focused on conservative modernization, in which opportunities for local control are limited. The municipal government of Porto Alegre, under the leadership of the Workers' Party, is an exception to this trend, having specifically allocated resources and decision-making to residents of its most impoverished neighborhoods through a measure called "Participatory Budgeting." A major project of the city is the "Citizen School," where social transformation is at the core of its curriculum and pedagogy. Porto Alegre shows what is possible for the democratization of education when renegotiation of relations of power takes place at the local, state, and national levels.

Key words: social movements, educational policy, social movements, education -- Brazil, Knowledge, local government -- Brazil -- participatory budgeting, Porto Alegre, Brazil -- politics and government

Platt provides a critique of the superficial nature of reforms in higher education. He analyzes how the movement toward multiculturalism has become co-opted, serving as a smokescreen for deeper structural problems like institutionalized racism. Platt poses the question: To what extent has multicultural education at the college level become an apology for inequality and segregation? He broadly reviews the contributions and contradictions of multiculturalism over the last 30 years, documenting ways in which the focus on "culture" has blurred a clear, historical understanding of racism. As Platt states, "celebrating differences is a far cry from dismantling inequalities."

Key words: multiculturalism, diversity education, education -- higher education -- United States, education -- multiculturalism, racism -- United States

García and Figueroa look at the roots and consequences of a deepening social divide at elite public institutions. In particular, they focus on the dramatic under-representation of Latina/os at the University of California. García and Figueroa also document the unique social challenges that underrepresented university students face after being admitted, demonstrating the need for institutional support that values students' culture both inside and outside the classroom.

Key words: affirmative action, Latinos in higher education, California -- politics and government, education -- higher education -- United States, Latinos -- education

Morrell and Collatos describe an innovative teacher education program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in which urban high school students of color trained pre-service teachers. The students took UCLA summer courses and participated in research projects in the sociology of education. Then, along with teacher education faculty, they helped to train pre-service teachers by giving guest lectures, presenting their research findings, and participating in critical dialogue. This reversal of the traditional teacher-student relationship provides a way to develop pedagogy and curricula rooted in diversity and real-life issues of social justice as understood from the perspective of urban students of color.

Key words: youth, high school students, teacher educators, new pedagogy, education -- United States, teachers -- teaching education

Gordon discusses how she has incorporated the voices of marginalized university students into the foundation of her course on "Race, Culture, and Class." Gordon invited her students who were ex-gang members to participate in an ethnographic research project in which they interviewed other gang members from their home communities. These students then shared their research findings in the class and, in turn, educated more privileged middle-class UCSC students on the complex realities of urban life. Gordon found that "engaging students in authentic research and inquiry brings about their own best efforts and eventual success." In the process of conducting and sharing their research, the once marginalized students found a bridge to their own changed position as university students.

Key words: youth, critical ethnography, new pedagogy, education -- higher education -- United States, ethnicity -- United States, social classes -- United States, youth -- youth gangs

Ginwright and Cammarota propose a new "Social Justice Youth Development Model" that addresses structures of power and teaches young people to understand how their opportunities are circumscribed by larger political, economic, and social forces. This model offers a critique of two dominant approaches to youth development: a traditional approach that focuses on individual and psychological outcomes for youth, and a more liberal service learning approach that perpetuates paternalism, but does not change external conditions of power relations. Both models can be, and have been, particularly oppressive for urban youth of color. Instead, the authors' model views youth as agents of social change and fosters "the praxis of critical consciousness and social action" by taking youth through three stages: self-awareness, social awareness, and global awareness.

Key words: youth and child development, social movements, music -- hip-hop, racism -- United States, reflexivity, social justice, youth of color

Benmayor uses research produced by her students to analyze how students negotiate multiple cultural worlds, drawing upon different funds of knowledge. Often, traditional forms of assessment stigmatize bilingual and bicultural students as academically deficient. Rather than being viewed as "problems," her oral history course intentionally provides space for first-generation students to draw upon their lived expertise. Benmayor finds in the oral histories of Mexican-origin, first-generation students a process of turning histories of cultural and economic subordination into empowering integrative spaces. Students in her program are able to model the possibility of creating a better future for themselves and for their families and communities.

Key words: language, cultural citizenship, immigrant students, education -- higher education -- United States, Immigrants -- Mexican -- United States, Latinos, Mexican American -- education, memory, racism -- United States

Garcia describes how she changed her pedagogy to draw upon her Spanish-speaking students' assets. A Chicana, the daughter of one-time farm workers, and a nontraditional student, the author had forgotten that when non-native-speaking students cross the quad and enter the classroom, they are entering foreign territory. Out of this realization, Garcia has created an innovative model for second-language acquisition in the English Composition classroom that combines student research of local communities with the expressive use of poetry.

Key words: language, literacies, pedagogy, education -- higher education -- United States, immigrants -- Mexican -- United States, language, Latinos -- education, writing

Payne Adler discusses the use of creative writing to teach students how to break silences, to witness their lives, to be engaged and responsible members of their communities, to bring together craft and critical inquiry. She describes a class in which students must confront their own views of welfare as they collaborate with single mothers at a local community college. Their product, a co-authored book titled Education as Emancipation: Women on Welfare Speak Out, has gone through several reprintings and has been used extensively to educate communities and legislators about the need for welfare reform.

Key words: language, social action writing program, new pedagogies, activism, education -- higher education -- United States, writing

Busman describes the process of truth-speaking when asking students to connect their lives with broader issues of power and powerlessness. Bearing witness is an essential part of facing hard truths, which can lead to the linking of creative writing to social activism.

Key words: youth, multiculturalism, new pedagogy, racism -- United States, truth, women -- United States -- social conditions, writing

The authors share their experiences with using New Media to change approaches to teaching and learning. Their four essays are snapshots of how they have developed technology-enhanced classrooms into places of active inquiry and authorship. Weis teaches African American History students how to conduct archival research in web-based historic sites and repositories, and to construct collaborative interpretations in PowerPoint. Benmayor incorporates Digital Storytelling in her Latina Life Stories class. O'Leary instructs students how to construct Digital Histories, many of which are family oral histories. The digital storytelling form authorizes them to lay claim to their own histories, their own voice, and to use primary sources in authoritative ways. Eynon works with a predominantly immigrant student body of color. His students conduct oral histories with their peers and develop electronic portfolios, in which hypertext facilitates multifaceted self-representation.

Key words: multiculturalism, digital technologies -- pedagogies, teaching, African Americans -- history, computers -- education, education -- multiculturalism, history -- oral history, narratives

Takcas describes how he begins each semester by asking students in his science department, "How does who you are and where you stand in relation to others shape what you know about the world?" He believes that by enabling each student to speak out of their unique experience, the class is better equipped to understand and effectively deal with the power relations that are part of every classroom discussion. In creating an assets model of multiculturalism, Takcas promotes listening, self-reflection, and consensus building. Even "bias" can be a resource, he explains, as students listen to each other and delve into assumptions that have been blindly followed.

Key words: social justice in the classroom, education -- higher education -- United States, environmental protection -- environmental racism, knowledge, theory of, perspectives, privilege

The authors go beyond the creation of knowledge in the classroom by proposing how the concept of reciprocity in an arts-education model can radically change relations between universities and their surrounding communities. They begin from a belief system in which art is a transformative practice, a language and a form in which people express their deepest needs and beliefs. The role of the arts, service learning, social justice, and cultural citizenship are addressed in this open-ended dialogue about the philosophy and the experiences of co-founding a Reciprocal University Arts Program between California State University and community groups in Watsonville, Salinas, Seaside, and Monterey.

Key words: youth, arts, youth community, Bains, Richard -- interviews, education -- art education, education -- higher education -- United States, Latinos -- education, Mesa-Bains, Amalia -- interviews, social justice

The book under review describes experiences in uncovering the many layers of racism in a graduate education class. It presents a raw and direct a discussion of racism. Kohl questions the effectiveness of the authors' "assault strategy" to get students to confront their own racism. In response to this critique, Ann Berlak and Sekani Moyenda provide two commentaries, thus building a complex dialogue on the question of how to best address racism in the classroom.

Key words: book review, race, classroom teacher training, discrimination in education -- U.S., racism -- study and teaching -- U.S.

This essay celebrates the life of June Jordan, a poet, political essayist, and challenging teacher who died on June 14, 2002. She inspired countless students to become poets and activists.

Key words: women, June Jordan, obit