About the Author

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, a sociologist, is a professor of education at Harvard University, where, since 1972, she has studied the culture of schools, families, and communities. She is the author of eight books, including The Good High School, Respect, I’ve Known Rivers, and Balm in Gilead, which won the 1988 Christopher Award for “literary merit and humanitarian achievement.” In 1984, she was the recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Prize Fellowship. In 1993, she was awarded Harvard’s George Ledlie Prize for research that makes the “most valuable contribution to science” and is to “the benefit of mankind.” She is the first African-American woman in Harvard’s history to have an endowed professorship named in her honor.

Reviews

“Here is a book that will help us all understand what happens when children leave home in order to learn at school: One world meets another, and as a consequence the young witness their elders in an instructive encounter of great significance—all of which is told forthrightly and thoughtfully in an enormously important volume (one soon to be a classic in the literature of education) that will be of continuing value to its readers.”—Robert Coles, author of Children of Crisis and Lives of Moral Leadership

“Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot has demonstrated again her instinct for the telling specificity that offers not only insight into matters of broad social concern but also reason for hope. In precise and luminous prose she connects our deepest passions and painful memories to the conversations that will determine our children’s futures.”—Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Life

“Lawrence-Lightfoot draws readers in with elegant prose and carefully drawn narrative portraits. . . . Anyone who has ever sat through a parent/ teacher conference, on either side of the tiny table, will find much to consider in these pages.”—Publishers Weekly

“Full of wisdom and insight, her book will help parents understand what happens when children leave home to learn at school and how to improve their learning experiences.”—Library Journal

"Here is a book that will help us all understand what happens when children leave home in order to learn at school: One world meets another, and as a consequence the young witness their elders in an instructive encounter of great significance-all of which is told forthrightly and thoughtfully in an enormously important volume (one soon to be a classic in the literature of education) that will be of continuing value to its readers." -Robert Coles, author of Children of Crisis and Lives of Moral Leadership

"Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot has demonstrated again her instinct for the telling specificity that offers not only insight into matters of broad social concern but also reason for hope. In precise and luminous prose she connects our deepest passions and painful memories to the conversations that will determine our children's futures." -Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Life

Lawrence-Lightfoot, the first African American woman in Harvard's history to have an endowed professorship named in her honor, has studied the culture of schools, families, and communities since 1972. Full of wisdom and insight, her book will help parents understand what happens when children leave home to learn at school and how to improve their learning experiences. She makes the case that parents and teachers need to work in unison and captures the dynamics of powerful and passionate dialogs between them, identifying new perspectives, sound principles, and effective practices that serve to foster more meaningful relationships between these important adults in a child's life. These dialogs, according to the author, serve as a mirror and metaphor for the larger cultural forces that define family-school relationships and are at the root of whether they work or fail. The information in this significant educational work is told in a forthright and thoughtful manner and will continue to be of immense value. Recommended for all types of libraries.-Samuel T. Huang, Univ. of Arizona Lib., Tucson Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.