GFP Alum Books

Abolition and Social Work: Possibilities, Paradoxes, and the Practice of Community Care

Mimi E. Kim
2024

Edited by Mimi E. Kim, Cameron Rasmussen, and Durrell M. Washington: A critical anthology exploring the debates, conundrums, and promising practices around abolition and social work in academia and within impacted communities.

Within social work—a profession that has been intimately tied to and often complicit in the building and sustaining of the carceral state—abolitionist thinking, movement-building, and radical praxis are shifting the field. Critical scholarship and organizing have helped to name and examine the realities of...

Unrecognized in California: Federal Acknowledgment and the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians

Olivia Chilcote
2024

By Olivia Chilcote: An inside account of one Luiseño tribe's history and their efforts to be recognized by the United States

With the largest number of Native Americans as well as the most non-federally recognized tribes in the United States, the state of California is a key site for sovereignty struggles, including federal recognition. In Unrecognized in California, Olivia M. Chilcote, member of the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians of San Diego County, demonstrates how the state's colonial history is foundational to the ongoing crisis over...

Crafting Homeplace in the Academic Borderlands: Humanizing Education, Research, and Relationships

David Philoxene
2024

Edited by David Philoxene, Danfeng Soto-Vigil Koon, Emma Haydée Fuentes: This volume highlights a case study of one diverse institution of higher education that was transformed to support faculty and students with varied cultures and identities.

Increasingly, faculty with intersectional perspectives are challenging many aspects of higher education and urging a radical reimagination of the institution itself. This volume explores the successful strategies and contradictions of working within, against, and beyond a university with the goal of...

Against Abandonment: Repertoires of Solidarity in South Korean Protest

Jennifer Jihye Chun
Ju Hui Judy Han
2025

By Jennifer Jihye Chun and Ju Hui Judy Han: Across the world, protest has become a much-debated tactic in struggles against inequality, political corruption, and ecological disaster. In South Korea, protest is a ubiquitous and essential form of political expression. In 1987, mass protests forced reforms that led to democratizing government. In 2017, the Candlelight movement removed the sitting president. Beyond these spectacular national protests, Korean workers and minority groups regularly turn to protest to express their grievances and assert their rights.

Based...

Street Life: Poverty, Gangs and a Ph.D

Victor Rios
2011

Street Life: Poverty, Gangs, and a Ph.D. traces the true-life coming-of-age story of Dr. Victor Rios, a college professor who grew up amid poverty and violence in Oakland, CA; he demonstrates his perseverance and resilience by surmounting the incredible obstacles he faces to earn his college degrees. We chose this novel for its insightful attention to some powerful social and emotional themes: poverty, social inequality, violence, perseverance, and resilience. Students will find themselves relating to and being inspired by Victor’s story; this curriculum will help students...

Integration Interrupted: Tracking, Black Students, and Acting White After Brown

Karolyn Tyson
2011

An all-too-popular explanation for why black students aren't doing better in school is their own use of the “acting white” slur to ridicule fellow blacks for taking advanced classes, doing schoolwork, and striving to earn high grades. Carefully reconsidering how and why black students have come to equate school success with whiteness, this book argues that when students understand race to be connected with achievement, it is a powerful lesson conveyed by schools, not their peers. Drawing on over ten years of ethnographic research, the book shows how equating school success with “...

Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys

Victor Rios
2011

Victor Rios grew up in the ghetto of Oakland, California in the 1980s and 90s. A former gang member and juvenile delinquent, Rios managed to escape the bleak outcome of many of his friends and earned a PhD at Berkeley and returned to his hometown to study how inner city young Latino and African American boys develop their sense of self in the midst of crime and intense policing. Punished examines the difficult lives of these young men, who now face punitive policies in their schools, communities, and a world where they are constantly policed and stigmatized.

Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap

A. Wade Boykin
Pedro Noguera
2011

In Creating the Opportunity to Learn, Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera help navigate the turbid waters of evidence-based methodologies and chart a course toward closing (and eliminating) the academic achievement gap. Turning a critical eye to current and recent research, the authors present a comprehensive view of the achievement gap and advocate for strategies that contribute to the success of all children.

Invisible No More: Understanding the Disenfrachisement of Latino Men and Boys

Pedro Noguera
Aida Hurtado
Edward Fergus
2011

Latino men and boys in the United States are confronted with a wide variety of hardships that are not easily explained or understood. They are populating prisons, dropping out of high school, and are becoming overrepresented in the service industry at alarming degrees. Young Latino men, especially, have among the lowest wages earned in the country, a rapidly growing rate of HIV/AIDS, and one of the highest mortality rates due to homicide. Although there has been growing interest in the status of men in American society, there is a glaring lack of research and scholarly work available...

Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life

Annette Lareau
2011

Class does make a difference in the lives and futures of American children. Drawing on in-depth observations of black and white middle-class, working-class, and poor families, Unequal Childhoods explores this fact, offering a picture of childhood today. Here are the frenetic families managing their children's hectic schedules of "leisure" activities; and here are families with plenty of time but little economic security. Lareau shows how middle-class parents, whether black or white, engage in a process of "concerted cultivation" designed to draw out children's talents and...