BOOK/MEDIA REVIEWS

Abstract

Transforming America: Cultural Cohesion. Educational Achievement, and Global Competitiveness, by Robert A. DeVillar and Binbin Jiang. New York: Peter Lang, 2011, 336 pp., $36.95, paperback.Much has been written and said about educational reform for a global competitiveness in recent years. Even more has been written and said about racism and equity in education. Seldom are these two bodies of scholarly discourse brought together. Even more rarely are they joined in a way that synthesizes best of two. Transforming America: Cultural Cohesion, Educational Achievement, and Global Competitiveness is such a book. Moreover, it is very well written.Robert DeVillar and Binbin Jiang, authors of this book, make a scholarly and wellresearched case for a new approach to achieving global competitiveness. This is done through eradicating racism and ensuring equity in quality schooling. The authors contend that unless exclusion from quality learning of marginalized students stop, America will not be able to compete and lead at a global level. This central argument of book is well supported by depth and comprehensiveness of historical research and cotemporary data from multiple disciplines. Furthermore, authors do an excellent job of organizing chapters so that readers can see intricate connections between realities of racism, education, economy, and globalization that hold answers to real global competitiveness of America.In Chapter 1, authors provide a salient illustration of critical challenges America faces today: erosion of national prosperity and global competitiveness. For those who still believe in permanency of Pax Americana along with presumption of America as epitome of freedom, democracy and wealth, this chapter is more than disorienting. The authors reveal where America stands within what Fareed Zakaria (2011) arguably terms, the post American world, in less than flattering ways such as our broken economic situation, eroding US competitive edge our nation is not rising to challenge of international competition academically, economically, and geopolitically. Then, authors carefully walk readers through to discover historical origins of current problems in Chapter 2: racism and White privilege from inception of nation onwards. Readers are presented with a rigorous historical account of how America has maintained privileged status of Whites up until today. Chapters 3 and 4 reveal a more disturbing history of how racism has been constructed and disseminated by academia and popular media, and further reinforced and sustained by government.In nation's long history of racism and exclusion, marginalized groups were not powerless victims; rather, they were ones who have challenged racist nation to live up to its founding rhetoric, liberty and justice for all, which is thoroughly documented in Chapters 5 through 7. Particular attention is paid to continued struggles and achievements by African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans in their quest for substantive social and educational equity. America is, however, nowhere near promise of its founding rhetoric, which is discussed in Chapter 8 with focus on school resegregation, widening achievement gaps along racial lines, which have led to a domestically fragmented and globally declining nation. …