A provocative and immensely helpful book, Unequal Schools, Unequal Chances is also a handbook for participatory practices in fostering social and economic growth in both developing and seemingly developed nations...[This book] fulfills its goals. It provides the evidence to define its context. It also examines and describes successful policy. What is most clear is that the problems have always overwhelmed the effort to resolve them, and in all cases it has been the poor who have suffered the consequences. Equity has deprived the poor, but is has deprived the nation of their talents. The bottom line this book offers is that the need to solve the problems of poverty coexists with the problems of staffing, facilities, and curriculum that may characterize poor schools. Equity is a social and economic problem that becomes an educational issue. The schools exist within a specific context, and are effected by—often determined by—its conditions. Unequal Schools, Unequal Chance offers data and suggestions for a wholistic approach to making education a positive tool for social and economic development. It is not limited to the developing world, or to Latin America, although that is its focus. Unequal Schools...should be a classic!
   --James J. Harrington, Education Review

This highly praised collection of articles examines the issues of educational opportunity and social inequality in the Americas...The articles, which are exceptionally clear and well written, attempt to explain how education reproduces social stratification, using widely accepted social science research methods...Recommended.
   --M. A. Saint-Germain, Choice

Fernando Reimers is Associate Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education.