Families, Schools, and the Adolescent : Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice

In her new book, bestselling author Cynthia Ballenger explores the intellectual strengths of puzzling children poor, urban, immigrant, or bilingual children who do not traditionally excel in school. Ballenger challenges the assumption that these children whose families have less formal education, read fewer storybooks, and talk less with their children about school-like topics, have fewer of what we might call intellectual or academically relevant experiences. This practical book offers a detailed roadmap for traversing the daily work of teaching todays diverse population, helping educators to refine their work as it unfolds in the classroom. Ballenger guides the reader as she thinks out loud about what children said, what it indicated about their thinking, and how the dialogue informed her teaching.

Nancy E. Hill is a professor at Harvard University, Graduate School of Education and the Suzanne Young Murray Professor at Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, Harvard University. Ruth K. Chao is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside.