Community and Communitarianism

James Paul Gee

"Michele Knobel watches new technologies and institutionalized power transform and become transformed by the local and situated realities of lives and classrooms. In the act, she makes an outstanding contribution to sociocultural literacy studies, to educational theory and practice, and to social and critical theory."

Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Madison,Wisconsin

Patricia Irvine

"In her lucid, engaging, and insightful book, Michele Knobel deftly debunks the popular equation of literacy achievement with social empowerment. In case studies of the language and literacy practices of four very different adolescents inside -and outside -school, she uncovers glaring mismatches between students' school-based language experiences and the richly diverse, multiple discourses that engage these students in their everyday lives. Her innovative research contributes to the growing theoretical literature on literacy as a social practice and offers concrete direction for radically re-envisioning language and literacy practices in school."

Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development, University of Rochester, New York

Booknews

Presents and defends a care-centered ideal of a good and moral community imbued with the virtues of a care-centered ethic, such as cooperation, mutual concern and solidarity, sympathy and empathy, benevolence, a spirit of sacrifice, and affection. Argues that a care- centered community needs to be constrained and fortified by equal respect for each participants' basic human right to be treated as a moral subject, together with fair and just treatment. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.