"Multiplication Is for White People"

January 16, 2012
A decade after her award-winning Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflicts in the Classroom, MacArthur Fellow and education professor Delpit, her passion unassuaged, takes a fresh look at education practice and theory with a sharp focus on “children marginalized either by income-level or ethnicity—or both.” Exploring four stages (infants, early childhood, adolescents, college age), her book is full of firsthand observations of teachers and students in multiple settings, most commonly the inner-city, and trenchant anecdotal accounts of her own experiences with her daughter’s “often difficult travels through school,” some predominantly white, some predominantly black. Delpit’s assessments of Teach for America and No Child Left Behind, while respectful of the goals, are critical of both the practices and the results. In reviewing current scholarship, she offers jargon-free explanations of current terminology (like “stereotype threat” and “microaggression”), and clarifies arguments with graphs and statistics. This is very much a book for teachers and education professionals, but anyone concerned with the state of American schooling will find Delpit’s smooth blending of the personal, the professional, and the political appealing and illuminating.