| Description |
1 online resource (281 pages) |
| Contents |
Cover; Half Title; Title; Dedication; Copyright; Contents; List of Figures; Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Schooling and Cultural Fact; Culture in Question; Culture and Context; Adam, Sheila, Joe, and Others at Cultural Work; Education in America; PART ONE The Makings of Some Educational Facts; 1 Adam, Adam, Adam, and Adam: The Cultural Construction of a Learning Disability; Three Accounts of the House Adam Inhabits; Making Banana Bread and Other Troubles; Making IQs in Public; The Cultural Construction or Learning Disabilities |
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2 The Farrells and the Kinneys at Home: Literacies in ActionSheila and Joe; Familial Literacy; The Eye Ointment Scene; Special Literacy; Homework and School Literacy; Variations in the Doing of School at Home; Culture: A First Approximation; 3 The Voice of the Choir, the Voices in the Choir; Religion, Therapy, a Lutheran Italian Choir Director, and Some Street Kids; Coming Together; The Rehearsal; And Then, Something Happened; Pulling Apart; The Performance of Talent; 4 Joint Action on the Wild Side of Manhattan; West Side High School: Center and Periphery |
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A Sociology of Educational Practices and HabitsConstructive Agency in Cultural Conditions: Problems and Possibilities; Constructing Walls and Other Boundaries; 8 Local Constructions of Educational Facts; Emergence and Accountability in Real Time; A Particular Instance; Constructing Labels; Social Constructions and Cultural Reality; Deconstruction and Local Faction; The ""I"" in the Cultural Machine; Conclusion: Beyond Explaining Why; Appendix A; Appendix Î#x92;; Appendix C; Bibliography; Name Index; Subject Index |
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The Study: One Moment in American TimeClassroom Constructionâ#x80;#x94;A Teacher's Task; Classroom (De) Constructionâ#x80;#x94;A Student's Task; A Teacher's Task for Her Students; The Voice of the Group: Laughter, Resistance, and Reconstruction; The Voice of the Center; 5 Racing in Place; The Performance of Success in Everyday Life; The Competitions of Everyday Life in Allwin Junior High; The Ritual Organization of Sorting: Standardized Times; The Social Organization of Sorting: Meetings in Uncertainty; The People of Hamden Heights and Their Activity; Mutualities in Success and Failure |
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Work and Resistance in CulturePART TWO Education and the Making of Cultural Facts; 6 Disability as a Cultural Fact; Describing Difficulties as Disabilities: Sightedness; The Fabrication of a Cultural Disability: Deafness; Three Ways to Write About Difficulties in School; Cultural Explanations of Poverty and Other Disabilities; Education and Difference; Patterns of Southern Cultures; Adaptive Withdrawal; American Education As a Culture; 7 Ways with Theoretical Words; The Intuition of Culture; Intuitions Denied; Current Common Senses of Culture; Cultural Psychologies of Intentionality |
| Summary |
In this controversial work, Herv Varenne and Ray McDermott explore education as cultural phenomenona construct of artifice and reality we impose upon ourselves. Questioning how the American education system defines and measures success and failure, Successful Failure is a must-read for anyone interested in educational reform, the American educational system, and the anthropology of education. }In this controversial work, Herv Varenne and Ray McDermott explore education as cultural phenomenona construct of artifice and reality we impose upon ourselves. The authors discuss in five case studies how the American education system defines and measures success and failure, why there is polarization between suburban schools and urban schools, and what about our system leads us to focus on the negative. Their exploration focuses not on the people or the activities of the system, but on the institutions themselves: who decided what was a success or failure? How was the identification done, and with what consequences?This important and timely book is a must-read for anyone interested in educational reform, the American educational system, and the anthropology of education |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Education -- Social aspects -- United States -- Case studies
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Education -- United States -- Evaluation -- Case studies
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Educational anthropology -- United States -- Case studies.
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School failure -- United States -- Case studies
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| Genre/Form |
Case studies.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
0429976682 |
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9780429976681 |
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