Based on the premise that narratives hold power and affect how people view themselves and Others, Essays on Exclusion brings together diverse disciplinary scholars, in education and beyond, to illuminate the promise of understanding how stories about one’s Self, and their juxtaposition to those that are Othered, influence how inclusion/exclusion operate in and outside schools. From philosophers to pre-service teachers, readers of this volume will learn more complex and nuanced perspectives toward exclusion often relegated to the margins, but no less important when pursing equity in various social contexts such as schools. By the end of the book readers will be more familiar with an understanding of equity and exclusion through a holistic view by becoming more attentive to intersectional analyses in their approach toward equity. Coming from a standpoint that exclusion, oppression, and marginalization become instituted as a function of certain positionalities being valued more than others, Essays on Exclusion draws on diverse narratives that are important in understanding how to operationalize equity starting from recognizing people’s positionalities being subjected to exclusion. This volume is appropriate for foundation courses in philosophy, education, or cultural studies, as well as higher level graduate courses focused on urban education and equity more broadly.
The authors in this volume demonstrate, through powerfully persuasive narrative, how exclusionary practices harm those most vulnerable to inequitable practices. An invitation to care, a call to reflect on policies and practices that have done more harm than good, and a hopeful path forward for theory, research, practice, policy and praxis – this book teaches as it transforms.
H. Richard Milner IV, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Education,
Author, Rac(e)ing to Class: Confronting Poverty and Race in Schools and Classrooms (Harvard Education Press, 2015)
In this beautifully evocative book, Phillip Boda has curated personal narratives from scholars who have vividly mapped their experiences of exclusion onto macro structures while simultaneously acknowledging the affective implications of this exclusion. But these narratives of exclusion refuse confinement within bleak spaces. Instead, these narratives soar both descriptively and analytically to claim this transformative notion of “homeplace” – spaces of resistance, possibility, and hope that work in opposition to exclusion to recognize and remember radical communities of praxis that learn to rely and know each other across difference. Boda’s critically analytical commentaries weave throughout the book coaxing a sharper understanding of these narratives urging us to listen attentively to the intellectual insights emerging from scholars whose wisdom is constituted within communities who have worked through difference against exclusion and towards radical hope.
Nirmala Erevelles is Professor of Social and Cultural Studies in Education at the University of Alabama and author of Disability and Difference in Global Contexts: Towards a Transformative Body Politic (Palgrave, 2012).
