Children and Families "At Promise"
Deconstructing the Discourse of Risk
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This book shows how the labeling of children as "at-risk" actually perpetuates the inequities, racism, and discrimination facing many families in America.
Description
This book critiques the currently popular "at-risk" construct, drawing from historical, contextual, critical, and personal perspectives. It provides an alternative context for viewing children and their families as "at-promise. " A basic premise of the book is that the generalized use of the "at-risk" label is highly problematic and often implicitly racist and classist—a 1990s version of the cultural deficit model that locates problems in individuals, families, and communities, rather than in institutional structures that create and maintain inequality. This book provides a needed interrogation and alternative context for viewing children and families caught in the extreme conditions facing many families in the United States.
Beth Blue Swadener is Associate Professor of Education, Kent State University. Beth Blue Swadener is Associate Professor of Education, Kent State University.
Reviews
"In Children and Families 'At Promise': Deconstructing the Discourse of Risk we see how deconstructing the at risk label is inextricably linked to a critical analysis of pervasive poverty and exclusionary and discriminatory educational practices within our society. Many myths have been decoded in these chapters. The 'at promise' narratives present a countertext of possiblility and action. It is clear, in reading the accounts of successful classrooms in this book, that when classrooms do become landscapes of promise, they offer children a place where their selfhood matters, where they do find acceptance and possibility, and where they can become meaningmakers within their lifeworld of school. " — from the Epilogue by Valerie Polakow, author of Lives on the Edge: Single Mothers and Their Children in the Other America