Ethnicity and Race: Creating Educational Opportunities Around the Globe reviewed by Nicholas D. Hartlep � January 05, 2012 Et hni ci t y and Race: Cr eat i ng Educat i onal Oppor t uni t i es Ar ound t he Gl obe, edited by Elinor L. Brown, a nationally recognized expert on equity and social justice and a professor of Education at the University of Kentucky, and Pamela E. Gibbons, Associate Dean International for the Faculties of Arts, Business and Education at Charles Sturt University, is a volume about culture, ethnicity, and race. A pleasant change from the many books on ethnicity and race that merely quetch vociferously about inequality without suggesting actionable solutions, Et hni ci t y and Race is uniquely more positively-oriented, given that it suggests possible and applicable reactions to social inequality. With an emphasis on sharing solutions and strategies for creating educational opportunities around the globe, this collection of chapters by twenty-four authors addresses models, programs, interventions, and frameworks that are positively impacting educational challenges near and afar—ideation that fosters possibilities in seemingly negative situations. A volume in the Information Age Publishing series: Int er nat i onal Advances i n Educat i on: Gl obal Ini t i at i ves f or Equi t y and Social Just ice, the book is reader-friendly and inclusive, and aims to reach a global audience by sharing the global research and initiatives of different people in different places. Et hni ci t y and Race accomplishes its goal of global influence handily since the chapters are based on research from five continents in more than fifteen countries (including Australia, China, Israel, Russia, Thailand, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United States). Et hni ci t y and Race is as impressive as it is comprehensive; its chief contribution lies in insightful discussions inspired by its contributing authors. Insofar as each reading provides newer and deeper insights, this book is an immediate classic, bound to be cited by the global research community for years to come. This frontline-edited volume contributes to the social study of global education in general, and global citizenship education in particular, by assembling together, in a new and thoughtful way, the traditions of social justice, citizenship education, and global education. The 331 page book examines educational policies and practices that have actually improved the academic and social success of disenfranchised groups around the globe. These groups include the Kalmyk in Russia, 57 diverse ethnic minority groups in China, the Māori in New Zealand, and numerous refugee groups on the Thai-Burma border. Its chapters are organized thematically into four parts. Part one is i nf l uence of pol i t i cs and pol i ci es on r aci al and et hni c educat i on. Part two’s theme is hi gher educat i on t r ai ni ng f or r aci al and et hni c soci al j ust i ce. The theme of the book’s third part is i nt er nat i onal t echnol ogy i ni t i at i ves t hat nur t ur e mul t i et hni c uni t y and soci al j ust i ce, and the three chapters that comprise this section are particularly well researched. The final part of the book addresses the theme of communi t y and gl obal ci t i zenshi p f or et hni c and r aci al soci al j ust i ce. What makes Brown and Gibbons’ editorial work so noteworthy is not simply the breadth of chapter contributions—certainly that is a part—but the ways in which they examine how and why creating educational opportunities around the globe is so challenging and complicated for project planners. To illustrate from a personal anecdote how such examination can complicate how one thinks about these issues, just recently I was sent an electronic-mail from a petition web site that I joined a while back (http://www.thepetitionsite.com). Being socially conscious and an activist for social, as well as scholastic justice, I thought signing such petitions would be helpful for the various social protests it published on its web site. The subject line of this particular electronic-mail read as follows: “Mali, Stop Child Labor in Gold Mines.” The message’s subject line jogged my memory of Et hni ci t y and Race’s chapter 11, “Freedom from Exploitive Child Labor Practices in East Africa: Strategies and Complications,” written by Vachel Miller. Miller’s chapter juxtaposed “child labor” and “child work.” Miller writes that “what distinguishes child labor from child work is that child labor is harmful to the development and well-being of the child” (p. 248). But equally as important as Miller’s differentiation between the two concepts—child work and child labor—is her own notion that creating educational opportunities around the globe does not automatically mean that children should not work, per se; it is much more complicated than that. Readers of Et hni ci t y and Race quickly understand that the social problems in Sub-Saharan Africa (and elsewhere) are not so simply ameliorated. The problem is not that children work in Africa; that would be too simple. It is not an either-or proposition of children Title: Ethnicity and Race: Creating Educational Opportunities Around the Globe Author(s): Elinor L. Brown & Pamela E. Gibbons (eds.) Publisher: Information Age Publishing, Charlotte ISBN: 1617355666, Pages: 348, Year: 2011 Search for book at Amazon.com Print Article http://www.tcrecord.org/PrintContent.asp?ContentID=16640 1 of 2 01/09/2012 04:11 PM