New book calls unearned educational advantage fundamentally unjust
April 13, 2011
OISE researcher Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, an assistant professor in the department of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning will launch his new book, co-edited with Adam Howard: Educating Elites: Class, Privilege, and Educational Advantage (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers) today.
The book demonstrates how educational researchers have largely ignored the educational experiences of the elite. It takes the reader through a wide range of educational contexts to illustrate that inequality is pervasive and that advantage yields more advantage.
“Whether this is the kind of future we – as educators – desire is a question we must ask honestly and upon which must act decisively," says Gaztambide-Fernández. "Unearned educational advantage is fundamentally anti-democratic and unjust. Interrupting it requires understanding it, making it explicit and calling it by its name. The more we know about the education of elite, the more opportunities we have to imagine how things might be different by making the hidden character of elite education visible."
Gaztambide- Fernández will appear as part of a panel discussion at 10 a.m., followed by the book launch at 11:45 a.m. The event takes place in room 5-250 at OISE. The panel will be chaired by Kari Dehli, a professor and former-Chair of the department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education at OISE. Other panellists include:
- Jane Kenway, a professor at Monash University;
- Paul Tarc, an assistant professor at the University of Western Ontario;
- Adam Howard, an associate professor at Colby College;
- Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández), an assistant professor at OISE.
Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández's research focuses on processes of identification within schools, including elite schools, specialized arts high schools and the experiences of Latinos/as in urban public schools. He is the author of The Best of the Best: Becoming Elite at an American Boarding School (Harvard University Press) and co-editor (with Adam Howard) of Educating Elites: Class Privilege and Educational Advantage.
Among his honours and distinctions, he received the "Early Career Scholar" Award from the Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies SIG of the American Educational Research Association. In 2007, he was nominated for a Teaching Excellence Award at OISE.
Books by the panellists will be on sale at the event from the Toronto Women’s Bookstore. Event sponsors include: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education; Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning; Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education; Comparative, International & Development Education Centre; Toronto Women’s Bookstore; and, the Centre for Media and Culture in Education.