A Schismatic Family and a Gated Community?

As described in this book’s general introduction, there have been substantive conversations between developmentalists and reconceptualists in early childhood education for two decades (e.g., Lubeck, 1994, 1998; Mallory & New, 1994). This conversation continues today in venues such as the two early childhood special interest groups of the American Educational Research Association. Although such a debate is present in other fields dedicated to adolescents (e.g., adolescent literacy), it has been notably absent in mainstream middle grades education scholarship (Brown & Saltman, 2005). Instead, critical perspectives such as those published in a special issue of Theory into Practice dedicated to rethinking middle grades (e.g., Gay, 1994; Lesko, 1994) have remained on the periphery.