Using richly textured case studies of two very different schools, Betty Achinstein shows when teachers enact reforms in the name of community, what often emerges is conflict. Whether dealing with issues of teacher collaboration or how to meet the needs of a diverse student population, conflicts within professional communities reflect important differences of beliefs and practices. This book reframes conflict as constructive in building educational communities that learn and promote democratic values in schools.

This dynamic text offers a rare glimpse into the literacy development of urban children and their families' role in it. Based on the author's candid interviews with her first-grade students, their parents and grandparents, this book challenges the stereotypical view that urban parents don't care about their children's education. By listening closely to the voices of her students and their families, the author helps us to move beyond negative assumptions, revealing complexities that have previously been undocumented.

This work investigates the imagination in the classroom to understand its function in literacy learning.

This work presents a method of critical inquiry that allows students and teachers to take intellectual and social risks in the classroom to make meaning together and, ultimately, to transform literacy education.

This work is about a group of experienced K-12 teachers who took teacher research to another level. Their story is not only about teachers working together to improve their own teaching, but also about their research reverberated throughout their schools.