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Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research Volume 1 Series Editor: Howard B. Kaplan

Texas A&M University, College Station, USA Frontiers of Sociology and Sociological Research publishes a series of edited volumes that will focus on new directions in (sub)specialties of sociology as these are reflected in novel theoretical paradigms, innovative methodologies, and contemporary substantive findings that exemplify and anticipate trends in these field. The volumes will parallel and complement the volumes in the Handbooks of the Sociology and Social Research series. Frontiers of Sociology and Sociological Research series begins where the Handbooks leave off by looking to the future. The series is predicated on the observation that any field of knowledge in contemporary times is a dynamic, rapidly changing body of perspectives and understanding that continuously builds upon the foundation of extant scholarship.

For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/8690

Maureen T. Hallinan Editor

Frontiers in Sociology of Education

Editor Maureen T. Hallinan Department of Sociology University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana USA [email protected]

ISBN 978-94-007-1575-2 e-ISBN 978-94-007-1576-9 DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1576-9 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2011933228 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

To Warren Kubitschek Accomplished Sociologist Generous Collaborator Trusted Mentor Faithful Friend

Foreword

When unsuspecting high-school students read the new bowdlerized edition of Huckleberry Finn, in which the word “slave” replaces the word “nigger,” they might not be aware that someone in an official capacity has exchanged their possible discomfort in confronting a noxious word for missing one of the major points of the novel. An educational “effect,” of a curricular nature and of as yet unknown magnitude, will have occurred. During an investigation of schooling in the Chicago area, Rebecca Barr and I discovered that students in one of the nine fourth-grade math classes we observed showed very substantial achievement gains, considerably better than the other fourth-grade math class in the same working-class multi-ethnic school whose class composition and text were the same, and better than results obtained in a far more affluent suburb. We asked the teacher how she designed her instruction. She said she starts the year in the middle of the textbook where fourth-grade-level math starts. The first half of the book, she remarked, reviews third-grade math; why