The Social Life Of Achievement

What happens when people "achieve"? Why do reactions to "achievement" vary so profoundly? And how might an anthropological study of achievement and its consequences allow us to develop a more nuanced model of the motivated agency that operates in the social world? These questions lie at the heart of this volume. Drawing on research from Southeast Asia, Europe, the United States, and Latin America, this collection develops an innovative framework for explaining achievement's multiple effects-one which brings together cutting-edge theoretical insights into politics, psychology, ethics, materiality, aurality, embodiment, affect and narrative. In doing so, the volume advances a new agenda for the study of achievement within anthropology, emphasizing the significance of achievement as a moment of cultural invention, and the complexity of "the achiever" as a subject position.

This is the second book in the series examining student achievement. The chapters in this book reflect the scholarly papers presented at the July 2006 Education Policy, Leadership Summer Institute (EPLSI) by K–16 educators, researchers, community advocates, and policymakers who work in urban communities. The Institute serves as a place where individuals interested in scholarly discussions and research directly related to: (1) how data can be utilized to inform policy; (2) examining the urban school context from the perspectives of the polity, school leaders; students; and other related internal and external actors; and (3) identifying strategies for improving student academic achievement can gather. During this week-long Institute, participants examined the structural problems and policy tensions affecting urban communities and student achievement. The Institute’s theme, Meeting the Challenges of Urban Schools is reflected throughout this book. Specifically, this edition explores the interrelated aspects of policy, practice and research and how they affect academic achievement. The five sections in this book examine different challenges facing urban schools and their impact on student performance.

Offers an optimistic look at the future role of information technology in society, going beyond the simplicities of information and individuals. Explains how many of the tools, jobs, and organizations seemingly targeted for future extinction due to information technology in fact provide useful social resources that people will fight to keep. Brown is chief scientist at Xerox Corporation and director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Duguid is research specialist in social and cultural studies in education at the University of California-Berkeley. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The notion of 'sociality' is now widely used within the social sciences and humanities. However, what is meant by the term varies radically, and the contributors here, through compelling and wide ranging essays, identify the strengths and weaknesses of current definitions and their deployment in the social sciences. By developing their own rigorous and innovative theory of human sociality, they re-set the framework of the debate and open up new possibilities for conceptualizing other forms of sociality, such as that of animals or materials. Cases from Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe explore the new directions of human sociality, illuminating how and why it is transformed when human beings engage with such major issues as economic downturn, climate change, new regimes of occupational and psychological therapy, technological innovations in robotics and the creation of new online, 'virtual' environments. This book is an invaluable resource, not only for research and teaching, but for anyone interested in the question of what makes us social.

“A lively survey…her research and insights make us conscious of how we, today, use books.”—John Sutherland, The New York Times Book Review Two centuries before the advent of radio, television, and motion pictures, books were a cherished form of popular entertainment and an integral component of domestic social life. In this fascinating and vivid history, Abigail Williams explores the ways in which shared reading shaped the lives and literary culture of the eighteenth century, offering new perspectives on how books have been used by their readers, and the part they have played in middle-class homes and families. Drawing on marginalia, letters and diaries, library catalogues, elocution manuals, subscription lists, and more, Williams offers fresh and fascinating insights into reading, performance, and the history of middle-class home life. “Williams’s charming pageant of anecdotes…conjures a world strikingly different from our own but surprisingly similar in many ways, a time when reading was on the rise and whole worlds sprang up around it.”—TheWashington Post

Providing fresh insights and understandings about educationally ‘successful’ minority ethnic pupils, this book examines the views, identities and educational experiences of those pupils who are undoubtedly ‘achieving’, but who tend to remain ignored within popular concerns about under-achievement. Combining a broad analysis of minority ethnic pupils’ achievement together with a novel, detailed case study of an educationally ‘successful’ group, the British-Chinese, this book examines a fascinating angle on debates about the reproduction of social inequalities. In this thought-provoking and highly accessible book, the authors: review the theoretical and policy context to issues of ‘race’, gender, social class and achievement discuss the role of teachers and schools explore Chinese parents’ views of their children’s education and explain how these families ‘produce’ and support achievement investigate British-Chinese pupils’ views on their approaches to learning and their educational identities examine the relationship between aspirations and educational achievement consider the complexity and subtlety of racisms experienced by ‘successful’ minority ethnic pupils. This timely and authoritative book contributes to the ongoing debates about levels of achievement among minority ethnic pupils and is an essential book for all researchers, students, education professionals and policy-makers.

The first book to highlight the most pressing sociology-of-language themes of our times. All of which have to do with the twin issues of power and identity . Important evidence and illustrations bearing upon these matters are provided and supplemented by an extensive bibliography.