Harvard University Press - EDUCATION

Hope and Despair in the American City

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Gerald Grant
In Hope and Despair, Gerald Grant compares two cities—his hometown of Syracuse, New York, and Raleigh, North Carolina—in order to examine the consequences of the nation’s ongoing educational inequities. The result is an ambitious portrait—sometimes disturbing, often inspiring—of two cities that exemplify our nation’s greatest educational challenges, as well as a passionate exploration of the potential for school reform that exists for our urban schools today.
Hardcover May 2009

The Sandbox Investment

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT

David L. Kirp
The rich have always valued early education, and for the past forty years, millions of poorer kids have had Head Start. Now, more and more middle class parents have realized that a good preschool is the smartest investment they can make in their children's future in a competitive world. Writing with the verve of a magazine journalist and the authority of a scholar, Kirp makes the ideal guide to this quiet movement and campaign.
Paperback May 2009

The Program Era

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Mark McGurl
In The Program Era, Mark McGurl offers a fundamental reinterpretation of postwar American fiction, asserting that it can be properly understood only in relation to the rise of mass higher education and the creative writing program. An engaging and stylishly written examination of an era we thought we knew, The Program Era will be at the center of debates about postwar literature and culture for years to come.
Hardcover April 2009

How Professors Think

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Michèle Lamont
Everyone in academia stresses quality. But what exactly is it, and how do professors identify it? Michèle Lamont observed deliberations for fellowships and research grants, and interviewed panel members at length. In How Professors Think, she reveals what she discovered about this secretive, powerful, peculiar world. Lamont aims to illuminate the confidential process of evaluation and to push the gatekeepers to both better understand and perform their role.
Hardcover March 2009

The Golden Age of the Classics in America

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Carl J. Richard
In a masterful study Carl Richard explores how the Greek and Roman classics became enshrined in American antebellum culture. For the first time, knowledge of the classics extended beyond aristocratic males to the middle class, women, African Americans, and frontier settlers. The Civil War led to a radical alteration of the educational system in a way that steadily eroded the preeminence of the classics.
Hardcover March 2009

The Latino Education Crisis

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:00:00 EST

Patricia Gándara
Frances Contreras
Drawing on both extensive demographic data and compelling case studies, this book reveals the depths of the educational crisis looming for Latino students, the nation’s largest and most rapidly growing minority group.
Hardcover January 2009

Tapping the Riches of Science

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:00:00 EST

Roger L. Geiger
Creso M. Sá
American universities are under increasing pressure to maximize their economic contributions. This book offers a rigorous and far-sighted explanation of this controversial and little-understood movement.
Hardcover January 2009

Speaking Up

Thu, 8 Jan 2009 00:00:00 EST

Anne Proffitt Dupre
Dupre examines the way courts have wrestled with student expression in school. Speaking Up offers eye-opening history for students, teachers, lawyers, and parents seeking to understand how the law attempts to balance order and freedom in schools.
Hardcover January 2009

Innocents Abroad

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST

Jonathan Zimmerman
Until the early twentieth century, teachers went abroad with assumptions of their own superiority. But by the mid-twentieth century, they became far more self-questioning about their social assumptions, their educational theories, and the complexity of their role in a foreign society. Drawing on extensive archives of teachers' letters and accounts, Zimmerman's narrative explores the teachers' shifting attitudes about their country and themselves, in a world that was more unexpected than they could have imagined.
Paperback December 2008

Investing in College

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST

Malcolm Getz
College education is one of the most important investments a family will make, but the process can be a headache for students and their parents. In a unique approach to this issue, economist and teacher Getz walks readers through the opportunities, risks, and rewards of heading off to college, breaking down confusing admissions and financial options.
Paperback December 2008

Humanist Educational Treatises

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Translated by Craig W. Kallendorf
This volume provides new translations, commissioned for the I Tatti Renaissance Library, of four of the most important theoretical statements that emerged from the early humanists’ efforts to reform medieval education.
Paperback September 2008

The Race between Education and Technology

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Claudia Goldin
Lawrence F. Katz
This book provides a careful historical analysis of the co-evolution of educational attainment and the wage structure in the United States through the twentieth century. During the first eight decades of the twentieth century, the increase of educated workers was higher than the demand for them. This boosted income for most people and lowered inequality. However, the reverse has been true since about 1980. The authors discuss the complex reasons for this educational slow-down and what might be done to ameliorate it.
Hardcover June 2008