Celebrating New Books on Social Justice and Education
Wednesday, March 12, 6-8 PM
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
Residents’ Dining Hall
800 S. Halsted
Snacks included

This booksigning and reception will include a roundtable discussion with authors and educators on important issues concerning education today.

Books:
Right to Be Hostile
by Erica R. Meiners
and
The Seduction of Common Sense
by Kevin K. Kumashiro

Roundtable Discussion:
Building Movements for Educational Change: Challenging the
Right, Dismantling the School-To-Prison Nexus, and Coalescing Across
Differences.

Discussion Panelists:

Mia Henry, Chicago Freedom School

Kevin Kumashiro, Center for Anti-Oppressive Education - University of
Illinois-Chicago

Erica R. Meiners, Northeastern Illinois University - St. Leonard's Adult
High School

Janeida Rivera, Batey Urbano


Right to Be Hostile: Schools, Prisons, and the Making of Public Enemies
(c)2007 Routledge

As early as preschool, educational policies and practices target
increasing numbers of students of color as under-educated, unemployable,
and in need of surveillance and containment.  In Right to Be Hostile,
Erica R. Meiners offers concrete examples and new insights into the
"school to prison pipeline" phenomenon, showing how disciplinary
regulations, pedagogy, and other educational structures not only
implicitly advance, but actually normalize an expectation of incarceration
for urban youth.  Meiners asks researchers, activists, and educators to
consider how our socio-cultural and economic structures support the
relationships between prisons and schools.  By presenting a juxtaposition
of strategies for change with an analysis of the forces that produce
relationships between schools and prisons, Right to Be Hostile provides
invaluable insight for activist educators committed to social justice.

Erica R. Meiners is an Associate Professor of Education and Women's
Studies at Northeastern Illinois University and is involved in a number of
local social justice projects in Chicago, including an adult high school
for formerly incarcerated men and women.

The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate on
America's Schools
(c)2008 Teachers College Press

Just in time for the 2008 elections, The Seduction of Common Sense offers
a powerful examination of current education policy initiatives as framed
by the rhetoric of the political Right and the political Left. Critical of
both sides, Kumashiro first provides a searching look at the Right and
shows why it has succeeded so well in winning the debate about the
purposes and possibilities of education. Here he brilliantly illuminates
how the Right uses particular "frames"--appeals to conservative notions of
the traditional family, free enterprise, goodness, and fear--to shape the
public's common sense ideas about schooling and build support for its
attacks on public education and social justice reforms.  Turning then to
the Left he shows how it has failed to win support for its initiatives and
goals, especially regarding racial disparities in schools. More
importantly, he argues that the Left must "reframe" common sense about
education to embrace a commitment to human rights, a belief in equality,
and quality education for all of our children. This is must reading for
anyone concerned about the future of public education, especially right
now.

Kevin K. Kumashiro, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Education and the
coordinator of Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois at
Chicago, and the founding director of the Center for Anti-Oppressive
Education.  His previous books include Against Common Sense: Teaching and
Learning toward Social Justice, and Troubling Education, which received
the 2003 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award.