De-Facing Power (Contemporary Political Theory)

In this major contribution to the power debate, Clarissa Rile Hayward challenges the prevailing view of power as something powerful people have and use. Rather than seeing it as having a "face," she argues for a view of power as a complex network of social boundaries--norms, identities, institutions--which define individual freedom, for "powerful" and "powerless" alike. The book's argument is supported by a comparative analysis of relationships within two ethnically-diverse educational settings--a low-income, predominantly African-American urban school; and an affluent, predominantly white, suburban school.