Ressler's "Dramatic Changes" is a powerful guide for anyone brave enough to create a space for young people to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity. Her accessible style and tangible suggestions describe a creative and educationally sound approach to supporting youth in thoughtfully wrestling with one of the most controversial social…

Reviews films presented at the Sixteenth Annual San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Films shown at this festival engaged a multiplicity of themes and varied in quality, but they were connected by a tacit understanding of individual and group oppression within an often hostile society. (SLD)

In recent years, filmmakers have begun to confront discriminatory images in film and other media, using their art to educate audiences and challenge visual arts colleagues to think more deeply about the messages they send to consumers. Reviews some of the most important and powerful of these films released in the past decade. (SM)

This article presents a review of five chapters in "Part II, Section C: Diversifying Curriculum" of "The SAGE Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction" (F. M. Connelly, M. F. He, J. I. Phillion, Eds.; Sage Publications, 2008). The reviewers suggest that in these chapters ["Curriculum and Cultural Diversity" (Gloria Ladson-Billings, Keffrelyn D.…

Analyzes stereotypes of the South and Appalachia in a recent nonfiction bestseller, demonstrating that prejudice against southerners and Appalachians is so entrenched that it goes unquestioned. Discusses how such stereotypical books can be used in multicultural education classes in Appalachian colleges. (SV)

Faltis's book succeeds in teaching the real meaning of equality of educational opportunity, as this concept relates to language differences in American classrooms. Content of instruction is hindered when students are taught through a language that differs from the language used at home, because limited-English-proficient students are treated in…

Reviews "Presence of Mind: Education and the Politics of Deception," (Pepi Leistyna, 1999) which discusses the American politics of identity and difference, analyzing how deceptive political ideologies operate through educational policy, schooling, and popular culture to reproduce the current racialized social order. The book offers…

Reviews book on perspectives of social cognition and intergroup relations that extracts key elements of a successful remedy to prejudice and discrimination and offers recommendations for schools seeking to improve intergroup relations. Recommends Aboud's work as a supplemental text for students, researchers, and program designers to reduce…

Presents a list of educational computer software rated developmentally appropriate and without social bias for young children in two age groups: 3-7 and 8-12 years old. Presents overviews of the best software in each category, and includes contact numbers and World Wide Web addresses for the publishers. (JPB)

Review of gender messages in education foundation textbooks evaluated explicit content and implicit messages. Most of the texts covertly subscribed to the notion of a dichotomous nature of gender roles, proclaiming a cultural consensus on how educators should treat persons fitting the roles and disregarding action toward gender equity. (SM)

Reviews an anthology that provides undergraduate and graduate students with theoretical and practical discussion on various ideological convictions in the fields of multiculturalism and bilingual education. Discusses theoretical conflicts and ideologies affecting the field of multiculturalism, and the more immediate effects of politics on teaching…

This paper reviews the book "The Bell Curve" by Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Alan Murray. The paper asserts as the book's main points and implications: (1) one's socioeconomic place in life is now determined by IQ rather than family wealth and influence; (2) ruling white elites, who have…

Notes that Obiakor et al's edited volume places special education within a cultural framework and identifies general and special education institutional practices that result in cultural diversity being recast as an individual deficit. Argues that the book fails to deal sufficiently with intersections of race, culture, and class that are critical…

Reviews essays by Raymond Williams, which explain how, within the context of a 150-year literary history, rural stereotypes have been constructed and imbedded within a collective consciousness by a form of cultural colonization. Suggests that Williams' insights can help rural education researchers think outside the conventional wisdom that…

Presents a 10-point checklist for choosing children's educational software that is free of cultural bias. Each point is illustrated with examples drawn from currently available software. A sidebar lists 25 educational software programs in the areas of social studies, ecology, math and logic, and language arts from which examples were drawn. (three…