"This original, important, and highly readable book analyzes the consequences of a school choice program on students friends, feelings, and fears in a multiracial school with many immigrant children. One of Rosenbloom s new insights is how the loss of trust, belonging, and connection with peers is a hidden cost of academically failing schools. She builds her analysis around the central preoccupation of adolescents, namely friends and peer relations, but situates it within a larger context of educational policy and social justice issues." - Caroline Hodges Persell, Professor of Sociology, New York University"Rosenbloom s book is an important contribution to the literature on peer groups in the U.S. because it focuses on how peer groups shape students friendships in a multiracial urban high school. In contrast, many previous studies focus on suburban high schools. Importantly, Rosenbloom points out that while very few white students attend "Last Choice High School," the students understandings of their peers are shaped by the overarching contexts of a school, school system, and society structured by white domination and white privilege. Rosenbloom balances fine-grained accounts of student life within schools with structural analyses of how these interactions are shaped by education policies that will help educators and policymakers understand the broader implications of her findings." - Jeanne M. Powers, Associate Professor, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University
