Very few issues are as important as education today and Dr. Coleman weds extant research with personal experiences to provide a contextual framework from which the reader can garner a more intense understanding of the issues. She covers such issues as parental involvement, academic achievement, teacher attitude, discipline, student motivation, and the impact of social problems on the education process and student achievement. The discourse evolves around five underlying themes: education is a partnership, perceptions and attitudes dictate our behavior, knowledge creates understanding and...

"African-American Stories of Triumph Over Adversity" is about ordinary people, born into poverty, violence and abuse, who have forged a path through the dense forest of life. Along the way, they learned to build upon their experiences to create a better way of life for themselves. Their voices are at once personal and political for they speak about the impact of the experience of family, school and community on their emerging self, as well as the psycho-social turmoil created living in a society where the color of one's skin defines one's place in the social order. These are stories of...