Content area
Full Text
Richard Arum, Irenee Beattie, and Karly Ford, eds. The Structure of Schooling: Readings in the Sociology of Education, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2011. 619 pp. $65.95 (paperback).
This wonderful collection of 50 short articles provides a wide-ranging look at many important issues that are central to an undergraduate course on the sociology of education. This reader is divided into five major sections: (1) theoretical and historical perspectives; (2) stratification within and between schools; (3) class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality; (4) student behavior and adolescent subcultures; and (5) the organizational environment. There is a brief introduction to each section, and each section concludes with a few discussion questions. Overall, I am impressed with this collection of articles. Most, if not all, of the articles are unique, informational, and important. Also, there is a mixture of older and newer articles. Rather than review all 50 articles, I want to highlight what I found to be the most interesting and useful articles.
In the section on stratification within and between schools, "The Chosen Ones," by Peter Cookson and Caroline Hodges Persell, is a real eyeopener; it provides a window into boarding schools that many people may not realize. "Brown at 50: King's Dream or Plessy's Nightmare," by Gary Orfield and Chungmei Lee, offers a detailed account of segregation and desegregation over the past 50 years in American schools. The three...