Invisible Children in the Society and Its Schools, Second Edition offers a series of reports by some of the most passionate and insightful scholars writing in the field of education today on groups of children and young people whose complexity, strengths, and vulnerabilities are largely unseen or unheard in the society and its schools.

The metaphors of invisibility and visibility are used to explore the social and school lives of groups of children and young people in North America who are socially devalued in the sense that alleviating the often difficult conditions of their lives is not a priority. This includes children who are subjected to derogatory stereotypes; children who are educationally neglected in schools that respond inadequately, if at all, to their needs; and children who receive relatively little attention from scholars in the field of education or writers in the popular press. The chapters detail oversights and assaults--visible and invisible--but also affirm the capacity of many of these young people to survive, flourish, and often educate others, despite the painful and even desperate circumstances of their lives.

By sharing the voices of the young, providing basic information about particular groups of children and young people, and offering thoughtful analysis of their social situation, this volume combines education and advocacy in an accessible volume responsive to the life-and-death issues of our time.

New in the Second Edition:
*Most of the chapters are totally new or have been thoroughly updated and revised.
*In a new introduction, Sue Books reflects on the social context of children's lives and how this has changed since the first edition was published in 1998--before September 11th and before welfare "reform."
*Suggestions for further exploration--books, films, Web sites--have been added at the end of each chapter.

Joseph D. Novak, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University, Education and Biology, is Senior Research Scientist, Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition.