Description: This book shows how the labeling of children as "at-risk" actually perpetuates the inequities, racism, and discrimination facing many families in America.
Review Quotes:
"In Children and Families 'At Promise': Deconstructing the Discourse of Risk we see how deconstructing the at risk label is inextricably linked to a critical analysis of pervasive poverty and exclusionary and discriminatory educational practices within our society. Many myths have been decoded in these chapters. The 'at promise' narratives present a countertext of possiblility and action. It is clear, in reading the accounts of successful classrooms in this book, that when classrooms do become landscapes of promise, they offer children a place where their selfhood matters, where they do find acceptance and possibility, and where they can become meaningmakers within their lifeworld of school." - from the Epilogue by Valerie Polakow, author of Lives on the Edge: Single Mothers and Their Children in the Other America