Market Movements

Winner of the 2009 Critics Choice Book Award of the American Educational Studies Association (AESA)Through careful ethnographic research, Market Movements represents community leaders, school officials, and most importantly, African American working class families who have used vouchers as a means of removing their children from public schools they deemed unacceptable. The book works to discern the overlaps and tensions between the educational visions of African American voucher families and those of powerful conservative educational forces in U.S. society which purport to be allied with them. To the extent that there are points of divergence with the educational right, and points of convergence with educational progressives, this book provides a hopeful message and a practical vision. It seeks to accomplish some of the critical empirical and conceptual groundwork that is necessary in order to renew the increasingly fractious relations between those social actors—teachers, communities of color, critical researchers, and labor unions—most likely to defend and expand previous social democratic victories.

"With compelling narrative, meticulous detail, and sharp analytic insight, Pedroni captures the misunderstood and contested world of African American parents who use vouchers to opt out of failing public schools. Neither duped by the neoconservative agenda nor blind to the limits of private schools, they represent a new iteration of an ongoing agenda of African American parents: to locate caring, community-oriented schools where high expectations will be the norm. This book is essential for all who seek to reform public education.--Emilie Vanessa Siddle Walker, Professor of Educational Studies, Emory University"In this insightful book, Tom Pedroni analyzes the ideological and political complexities underlying African American parents’ support for vouchers. Pedroni’s ethnographic account and his call for "progressive modernization" in education encourage us to conceptualize a more inclusive and effective movement for democratic education."--Pauline Lipman, Professor of Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois-Chicago"Pedroni's study advances our thinking about African American use of school vouchers by theorizing the relationship between the educational Right and Black parents. This is an accessible and readable work, in which Black working class voices are clearly heard."--Geoff Whitty, Director, Institute of Education, University of London"Pedroni’s book reinvigorates educational critical theory with a deeply informed and politically astute case study."--James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Arizona State University, Winner of the 2009 Critics Choice Book Award of the American Educational Studies Association (AESA)"With compelling narrative, meticulous detail, and sharp analytic insight, Pedroni captures the misunderstood and contested world of African American parents who use vouchers to opt out of failing public schools. Neither duped by the neoconservative agenda nor blind to the limits of private schools, they represent a new iteration of an ongoing agenda of African American parents: to locate caring, community-oriented schools where high expectations will be the norm. This book is essential for all who seek to reform public education."--Emilie Vanessa Siddle Walker, Professor of Educational Studies, Emory University"In this insightful book, Tom Pedroni analyzes the ideological and political complexities underlying African American parents’ support for vouchers. Pedroni’s ethnographic account and his call for "progressive modernization" in education encourage us to conceptualize a more inclusive and effective movement for democratic education."--Pauline Lipman, Professor of Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois-Chicago"Pedroni's study advances our thinking about African American use of school vouchers by theorizing the relationship between the educational Right and Black parents. This is an accessible and readable work, in which Black working class voices are clearly heard."--Geoff Whitty, Director, Institute of Education, University of London"Pedroni’s book reinvigorates educational critical theory with a deeply informed and politically astute case study."--James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Arizona State University"Thomas Pedroni’s Market movements: African American involvement in school voucher reform greatly assists in distilling the complexities of school choice reform within African American communities, and contributes greatly to the literature on the politics of school choice reform."-- Janelle Scott, Education Review, August 27, 2008"I welcome Market Movements and certainly will draw closely upon it in the future."--Journal of Education Policy

Thomas C. Pedroni