The World We Created at Hamilton High by Gerald Grant (ED209A)

This book follows a school through different stages - as the new school in the 1950's (the pride of all those white students and parents), into the 1960's and 1970's with civil unrest, desegregation, the breakdown of social mores including increased students' rights, and then into the 1980's when its mission changes (to be more inclusive among other things).

It's a fascinating ethnography, well-documented and explicated, about what this business of schooling is about. The tensions that create a school culture are viewed from different perspectives - students, teachers, parents, and administrators. They are seen within the U.S. cultural context and as a microcosm alone.

A quick and interesting book, it reads like a novel (not painfully like most education policy stuff I read). My second time reading, I know I got more this time - it has several layers of information that are much like those "turtles stacked on turtles" (as culture is described in my qualitative research course).

I highly recommend it to anybody who likes to think and reflect about education and schooling.