Perseus Academic: Other People's Children by Lisa Delpit

Winner of an American Educational Studies Association Critics’ Choice Award and Choice Magazine’s Outstanding Academic book award, and voted one of Teacher Magazine’s great books, Other People’s Children has sold over 150,000 copies since its original hardcover publication. This anniversary paperback edition features a new introduction by Delpit as well as new framing essays by Herbert Kohl and Charles Payne.

In a radical analysis of contemporary classrooms, MacArthur Award–winning author Lisa Delpit develops ideas about ways teachers can be better cultural transmitters in the classroom, where prejudice, stereotypes, and cultural assumptions breed ineffective education. Delpit suggests that many academic problems attributed to children of color are actually the result of miscommunication, as primarily white teachers and other people’s children struggle with the imbalance of power and the dynamics plaguing our system.

A new classic among educators, Other People’s Children is a must-read for teachers, administrators, and parents striving to improve the quality of America’s education system.


Lisa Delpit is an Eminent Scholar and Executive Director of the Center for Urban Education and Innovation at Florida International University in Miami, where she lives. Her work is dedicated to providing excellent education for marginalized communities in the United States and abroad.

Herb Kohl is a recipient of the National Book Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He was the founder and first director of the Teachers and Writers Collaborative in New York City and established the PEN West Center in San Francisco, where he lives. He is the author of more than forty books, including the bestselling 36 Children and the classic “I Won’t Learn from You” (The New Press).