Language, Culture, and Teaching: Critical Perspectives for a New Century.

Sonia Nieto. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002. 295 pp. $29.95. Sonia Nieto, a well-known and respected multicultural educator, examines culture and linguistic diversity in today's schools in this well-written book. Her textbook is divided into four topics: Setting the Groundwork, Identity and Belonging, Implications for the Preparation of Critical Teachers, and Praxis in the Classroom.

This text integrates articles and book chapters that Nieto has already published, in addition to pedagogical features within each chapter. Likewise, each chapter concludes with "Critical Questions," "Activities for the Classroom," and "Community-Based Activities and Advocacy." Her text is well-organized and presents current research in a way that keeps the reader's interest. It is not often that one can find a book that is well-written from both a theoretical and a practical standpoint. Language, Culture, and Teaching achieves that goal and is very appropriate for both preservice and inservice teachers in an undergraduate or graduate teacher education program.

Overall, this text offers a critical perspective from which to engage teachers in examining cultural and linguistic differences. Nieto provides the reader with a hopeful and critical examination of ways that teachers can change classroom practices and school politics to better serve all students. She refers to the role of teachers as never neutral but rather as a "political project," either for or against those whom they teach. Her book encourages readers to question their beliefs and the attitudes of their students--in order that we can all learn how to meet the needs of students in a changing world. Reviewed by Jan Guidry Lacina, Assistant Professor, Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX