Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys: Race and Gender Disparity in Urban Education

Rating:
Summary: race, class, and GENDER!
Review: In this book, Dr. Lopez evaluates low-income Dominican, Haitian, and West Indian students to see how gender differentiates their views of society, school, family, and the workforce. Dr. Lopez is "a subject from within": a Dominican-American who was raised under the same circumstances as her subjects.

Progressive academics have argued for years that thinkers have not produced enough theory that juggles issues of race, class, and gender. Here, those three issues are tackled. Equally important, race and class are taken into account and gender is the primary lens of analysis. This is rightfully called gender studies as both men and women are examined. Dr. Lopez observes a homogenous school, thus this book makes almost no comparisons between Caribbean Americans and European Americans.

Gender aside, this book looks at the sad state of public schools in many parts of America. Post-911, Giuliani has been embraced as "America's Mayor." However, this books points to the former mayor's assault against NYC public schools and illustrates why Black and Latino residents have historically resented him. In the school examined, teachers don't have offices. The walls are crumbling. The students don't even get textbooks. There is absolutely no mention of extracurriculars, so my guess is that they don't have any. There is more emphasis put on students' going through metal detectors than getting a good, critical education. Teachers and security guards spend more time ripping off boys' hats than making sure that they learn or feel safe.

The most important point of this book is how Dr. Lopez shows that gender matters. Women may not like police, but they are not physically assaulted by them. Women are given responsibilities at home and ordered to submit to authority and learn to exhibit the habits that teachers reward. Women value education even when they are getting shoddy ones. Women get away with antics in the class for which men are severely punished.

Many progressive readers may feel that Dr. Lopez is preaching to the choir. Race and gender are not separate worlds; they are categories that sit by each other constantly informing each other. For those who don't know this, this will be a shocker. For those who do, much of what Dr. Lopez says is nothing new. The second chapter which concerns men's fears of physical violence and women's fears of sexual stereotyping is nothing new, again.

Dr. Lopez has a purposeful project of challenging those thinkers who would say it's their own fault if Caribbean-American men and women don't succeed in American schools. I applaud her for that. However, she states that Caribbean boys don't study because they are insulted by the simpleness of the books they are given. I highly doubt that every unsuccessful male student does poorly because he is not challenged. Surely, some male students, of whatever ethnicity, would get As knowing that a 4.0 GPA from a bad school would still give them accesses to college admissions and scholarships. No such male is ever mentioned in this study. Dr. Lopez said that none of her subjects considered performing well in school as "acting white", but maybe that's an African-American concern rather than a Caribbean one. Dr. Lopez details that the streets are more important to males than the home, but this gendered divide of the public and private is a well-established topic; she never recognizes that.

Dr. Lopez puts the chapter on families after her chapters where she observes the students in class. I would have put it before so that the book had more of a chronological flow. She describes 4 classes in the chapter on girls, but only one on the chapters on boys. I am not sure to which gender this may show a partiality. Because she looks at how gender differentiates individuals in and outside of the schools, anti-sexist teacher may be frustrated by her results. Nothing is clearly spelled out to show how teachers can affect change in such a way that males start attending college as much as females. But I don't fault her for being holistic, and possibly exhaustive in her examination.

As the only Caucasian group to which the subjects have contact, they often compare themselves, and somewhat rag upon, Jews. This may feel anti-Semitic to some readers. But remember that New York City has its own unique ethnic conflicts that can't be applied to the rest of the nation. Dr. Lopez interviews many people who want to be doctors, lawyers, and Ph.D.s I love of hearing of people of color aiming high. However, I would have loved to have heard more people aiming to be teachers, business owners, or public administrators. Regardless of race, only 19% of medical school applicants will get into any medical school whatsoever. I hope these subjects don't end up without a paddle. The careers cited can be just as difficult to enter as the rap world or the sports arena.

Dr. Lopez has a bright career ahead of her. Despite my critiques, I appreciated this book. I think it will be embraced by many.