"The Opportunity Gap" aims to shift attention from the current overwhelming emphasis on schools in discussions of the achievement gap to more fundamental questions about social and educational opportunity. The achievement gap looms large in the current era of high-stakes testing and accountability. Yet questions persist: Has the accountability movement-and attendant discussions on the achievement gap-focused attention on the true sources of educational failure in American schools? Do we need to look beyond classrooms and schools for credible accounts of disparities in educational outcomes? The essays in this book reintroduce the overlooked central issue in educational inequity: the lack of opportunity that many social groups face in our common quest for educational attainment. In a series of wide-ranging and carefully nuanced essays, "The Opportunity Gap" casts much-needed light on the vexed relationship between society and education-and on the crucial, persistent role that education plays in addressing social ills. This volume is divided into three parts. Part One: "Social Structures, Institutions, and Education" introduces the following chapters: (1) Poverty and Education (Raewyn Connell); (2) "Improve the Women": Mass Schooling, Female Literacy, and Worldwide Social Change (Robert A. Levine, Sarah E. Levine, and Beatrice Schnell-Anzola); and (3) Cognitive Skill and Economic Inequality: Findings from the National Adult Literacy Survey (Stephen W. Raudenbush and Rafa M. Kasim). Part Two: "The Interactions among Schools, Students, and Communities" continues with: (4) The Politics of Culture: Understanding Local Political Resistance to Detracking in Racially Mixed Schools (Amy Stuart Wells and Irene Serna); (5) Structuring Failure and Success: Understanding the Variability in Latino School Engagement (Gilberto Q. Conchas); and (6) Student Social Class and Teacher Expectations: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in Ghetto Education (Ray C. Rist). Following an introduction, Part Three: "Expanding Opportunities, Fostering Achievement" provides: (7) The Algebra Project: Organizing in the Spirit of Ella (Robert Parris Moses, Mieko Kamii, Susan McAllister Swap, and Jeff Howard); (8) Citizenship for All in the Literate Community: An Ethnography of Young Children with Significant Disabilities in Inclusive Early Childhood Settings (Christopher Kliewer, Linda May Fitzgerald, Jodi Meyer-Mork, Patresa Hartman, Pat English-Sand, and Donna Raschke); and (9) Lessons from Students on Creating a Chance to Dream (Sonia Nieto).