Adolescent Literacy, edited by Jacy Ippolito, Jennifer L. Steele, and Jennifer F. Samson (Harvard Education Press, 2012). Originally a special issue of The Harvard Educational Review, it was republished as a book due to high demand. It explores the adolescent literacy crisis, the use of cognitive strategies, and disciplinary and content-area literacy.
Cultural Foundations of Learning: East and West, by Jin Li (Cambridge University Press, 2012). This book explores the fundamentally different views about learning held by Western and East Asian people and how those views influence their child rearing and education.
From Parents to Children: The Intergenerational Transmission of Advantage, edited by John Ermisch, Markus Jäntti, and Timothy M. Smeeding (Russell Sage Foundation, 2012). An international group of scholars using data from 10 countries investigates whether economic inequality in a parent’s generation leads to inequalities of opportunity for the subsequent children’s generation. The book explores the structural differences that may influence intergenerational mobility in the different countries.
Gendered Paradoxes: Educating Jordanian Women in Nation, Faith, and Progress, by Fida Adely (University of Chicago Press, 2012). This book challenges the 2005 World Bank assessment of the Middle East nation of Jordan as a so-called “gender paradox” because highly educated women remain at home as mothers and caregivers. The author examines how the importance of education in Jordan is not tied to the economic ends of labor and employment as it is elsewhere in the developed world.
Learning to Flourish: A Philosophical Exploration of Liberal Education, by Daniel R. DeNicola (Continuum, 2012). In this book, the author weighs the views of both advocates and critics of the liberal arts and discusses the liberal-arts tradition.
Palestine in Israeli School Books, by Nurit Peled-Elhanan (I.B. Tauris, 2012). This book explores how Israel’s education system and school textbooks represent Palestine as schools prepare the country’s young people for compulsory military service and participation in the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
School, Society, and State: A New Education to Govern Modern America, 1890-1940, by Tracy L. Steffes (University of Chicago Press, 2012). This book explores public school reform in the early 20th century and American political development from 1890 to 1940, arguing that American public schooling was a central reform project of the Progressive Era.
Uncivil Rights: Teachers, Unions, and Race in the Battle for School Equity, by Jonna Perrillo (University of Chicago Press, 2012). This book examines the relationship between teachers and civil rights activists in New York City from the Great Depression to the present.