This original consideration of the link between education and culture lives up to the Bruner standard of insightful, provocative, and essentially hopeful discourse. Bruner (Actual Mind, Possible Worlds, 1986, etc.), the doyen of cognitive psychology, has two ends in mind in this volume of essays: One concerns education in the narrow sense, and possible remedies for its current plight. The second addresses the larger theme of how we as individuals come to identify ourselves in a particular culture, a process that leads Bruner to the interesting conclusion that the future of psychology lies in a marriage to anthropology. As always, Bruner argues that learning is situated in a context, which for human beings involves the shared symbols of a community, its traditions and toolkit, passed on from generation to generation and constituting the larger culture. Bruner traces the evolution of the study of mind from schools of psychology and philosophy that have variously emphasized mind as information processor, mind as instrumental actor, mind as brain evolved from primate/hominid biology, and mind as a developing organ. How we construe mind influences pedagogy, from the concept that sees information flowing from teacher to fill the (passive) brains of the young to the cultural-psychological perspective Bruner now espouses. In a long first essay he outlines a series of tenets, ranging from the need to foster self-esteem in children to the importance of the narrative mode by which children come to recognize themselves and find a place in the culture. The essays that follow enlarge on these themes with telling commentary on contemporary society. The last chapter spells out why Bruner feels that if psychology is to better understand human nature and the human condition it must master the interplay between biology and culture. No doubt this will elicit ``yes, but's'' and ``no way'' from assorted academic fiefdoms, but the general reader may well find this an exhilarating notion well supported by this wonderfully argued work.
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-674-17952-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1996
A lucid and revealing key to events of half a century ago, when moral suasion and self-interest together “trumped racist...
Thoughtful recounting of a fateful year-plus of desegregation in the Deep South by a native daughter.
Jacoway, a historian who was just a couple of grades behind the so-called Little Rock Nine, writes with measured wonder about the state of the world during her childhood, when militant governor Orval Faubus cried totalitarianism at the federally ordered dismantling of Jim Crow educational laws and the civil-rights movement acquired a potent icon in Elizabeth Eckford, a black student who inaugurated desegregation at Little Rock’s Central High, “absorbing an outpouring of white rage.” Such signal moments, historians recognize, are the product of great social forces. But they are also the work of individuals, some barely remembered today, and the chief virtue of Jacoway’s well-written study is its concern for individuals and small moments. Daisy Bates, for instance, the noted civil-rights activist, planned to drive the black students to Central High, where they would be surrounded by a cordon of black and white ministers who would serve as a “moral shield” against the hostile crowd. But the Eckfords did not have a telephone, and so Elizabeth unknowingly entered the lion’s den of Central High alone. She was threatened with death, as was a Communist firebrand named Mrs. Lorch, who responded with threats of her own. In the meanwhile, Governor Faubus—who had been helped into office by the pioneering integrationist reporter and editor Harry Ashmore—had ordered the Arkansas National Guard not to keep the peace, but to keep black students away. Jacoway’s narrative introduces readers to important and passing characters on both sides of the struggle, who fought bitterly as the Little Rock case went up before the Supreme Court. They fought less bitterly afterward, when most Arkansans accepted the Court’s upholding of the federal desegregation mandate—a ruling, Jacoway notes, that “left unanswered many of the procedural questions that plagued southern school boards in ensuing years.”
A lucid and revealing key to events of half a century ago, when moral suasion and self-interest together “trumped racist values in Arkansas’s capital city”—and beyond.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2007
ISBN: 0-7432-9719-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2006
A fascinating subculture sensitively brought to light, along with some troubling questions.
Minority chess jocks dominate the game, but social realities prove tougher opponents.
Sportswriter Weinreb documents a year with Brooklyn’s Edward R. Murrow High School chess team—a dynastic powerhouse that has come to dominate the sport (yes, sport) since its formation two decades ago. Murrow’s success is made particularly noteworthy by the makeup of the team; these young geniuses are not the product of privilege and private education, but inner-city youths from low-income immigrant families. Weinreb deftly explores the quirky personalities of the team’s stars: wry, mordant Sal, a Lithuanian prodigy approaching grand-master status; intense and self-punishing Ilya, the team’s under-confident Russian captain; irrepressible Oscar, a genial and unpredictable gambler who’s family hails from Puerto Rico; and the worrisome Shawn, also Puerto Rican, a hulking, unmotivated talent who employs chess as a method for avoiding school work and hustling extra cash in the park. The set-up seems ripe for a standard inspirational Stand and Deliver narrative, but the book is compelling in its ambivalent view of the role of chess in these young students’ lives—their brilliance does not translate into stellar grades, and the future educational and professional prospects of the Murrow team are anything but secure, an irony driven home when the championship team, diffident, distracted and directionless, are congratulated in a photo-op by George Bush. Weinreb paces the action expertly—the individual chess matches are rendered as exciting as any NCAA nail-biter—and the season’s ebbs and flows intermingle with the prosaic details of inner-city adolescence to singularly lyrical effect. Weinreb gives much attention to the academic culture of the “alternative” public Murrow school, where individuality and personal responsibility for one’s education are emphasized; a double-edged sword for these gifted but at-risk students, who all too often abuse the school’s laissez-fare policies. Accounts of Murrow’s recent trend toward more conventional operations yield only more ambivalence: Fewer children are “left behind,” but the cost may be an end to the nurturing environment that has brought forth such frustrating, eccentric genius.
A fascinating subculture sensitively brought to light, along with some troubling questions.Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 1-592-40261-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Gotham Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
