A bold vision that empowers communities to solve our cities’ most pressing problemsAmid political repression and a deepening affordability crisis, Budget Justice challenges everything you thought you knew about “dull” and daunting government budgets. It shows how the latter confuse and mislead the public by design, not accident. Arguing that they are moral documents that demand grassroots participation to truly work for everyone, the book reveals how every...

The fourth edition of Community Organizing and Community Building for Health and Social Equity provides both classic and recent contributions to the field, with a special accent on how these approaches can contribute to health and social equity. The 23 chapters offer conceptual frameworks, skill- building and case studies in areas like coalition building, organizing by and with women of color, community assessment, and the power of the arts, the Internet, social media, and policy ...

Shares the voices of students speaking out against the failures of urban education"Our schools suck." This is how many young people of color call attention to the kind of public education they are receiving. In cities across the nation, many students are trapped in under-funded, mismanaged and unsafe schools. Yet, a number of scholars and of public figures have shifted attention away from the persistence of school segregation to lambaste the values of young people ...

“If you fear that cultural, political, and class differences are tearing America apart, read this important book.” —Jonathan Haidt, Ph.D., author of The Righteous MindWho will rule in the twenty-first century: allegedly more disciplined Asians, or allegedly more creative Westerners? Can women rocket up the corporate ladder without knocking off the men? How can poor kids get ahead when schools favor the rich?As our planet gets smaller, cultural conflicts ar...

**The classic, myth-shattering history of the American family.“The Way We Never Were effectively demolishes the normal, traditional nuclear family as neither normal nor traditional, and not even nuclear.” ―Nation**Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary, a man’s home has never been his castle, the “male breadwinner marriage” is the least traditional family in history, and rape and sexual assault were far higher in the 1970s than they are today. I...

The classic, New York Times-bestselling book on the psychology of racism that shows us how to talk about race in America.“An unusually sensitive work about the racial barriers that still divide us in so many areas of life.” ―Jonathan Kozol, author of Amazing GraceWalk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own...

No occupation in America supplies a greater proportion of leaders than the legal profession, yet it has done little to prepare them for this role. Lawyers sit at the helm of a vast array of powerful law firms, businesses, governmental, and nonprofit organizations. Two of the last three presidents have been lawyers. And yet almost no occupation rouses greater public distrust. This paradox raises two important questions: Why do we look to lawyers to lead, and why do so many of them prove to ...

The meaning and significance of the institution of marriage has engendered angry and boisterous battles across the United States. While the efforts of lesbians and gay men to make marriage accessible to same-sex couples have seen increasing success, these initiatives have sparked a backlash as campaigns are waged to "protect" heterosexual marriage in America. Less in the public eye is government legislation that embraces the idea of marriage promotion as a necessary societal good.In...

The debate over affirmative action has raged for over four decades, with little give on either side. Most agree that it began as noble effort to jump-start racial integration; many believe it devolved into a patently unfair system of quotas and concealment. Now, with the Supreme Court set to rule on a case that could sharply curtail the use of racial preferences in American universities, law professor Richard Sander and legal journalist Stuart Taylor offer a definitive account of what affi...

**Major new reflections on race and schools—by the best-selling author of “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?“A Simmons College/Beacon Press Race, Education, and Democracy Series Book**Beverly Daniel Tatum emerged on the national scene in 1997 with “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?,“ a book that spoke to a wide audience about the psychological dynamics of race relations in America. Tatum’s unique abil...

A New York Times Notable Book for 2011Since the 1960s, ideas developed during the civil rights movement have been astonishingly successful in fighting overt discrimination and prejudice. But how successful are they at combating the whole spectrum of social injustice-including conditions that aren't directly caused by bigotry? How do they stand up to segregation, for instance-a legacy of racism, but not the direct result of ongoing discrimination? It's tempting to b...

Many activists worry about the same few problems in their groups: low turnout, inactive members, conflicting views on racism, overtalking, and offensive violations of group norms. But in searching for solutions to these predictable and intractable troubles, progressive social movement groups overlook class culture differences. Missing Class looks through a class lens and discovers that members with different class life experiences tend to approach these problems d...