After receiving her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, Karen V. Hansen joined the faculty at Brandeis University and for thirty-five years taught courses on social inequality, immigration, families, and historical sociology to hundreds of students. Her new book, Working-Class Kids and Visionary Educators in a Multiracial School: A Story of Belonging, explores how principals and teachers sought ways to cultivate youth development, peer helping, and student leadership. Through oral histories and archival research about Sunnyvale High, the school she attended, Hansen assesses what made it such an effective learning environment.
The author of four books and numerous scholarly articles, and the editor of three anthologies, Hansen has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; a Fulbright Distinguished Chair in American Studies, at Uppsala University, Sweden; an Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellowship in the Humanities, Harvard University; and conferred with an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Southern Denmark.
Working-Class Kids, grounded in both sociological research and personal reflection, chronicles how one racially diverse public high school in 1970s California fostered student pride, inclusion, and engagement through deliberate practices that are deeply relevant today.
Sunnyvale High School faculty developed an innovative curriculum that provided real-world learning opportunities. They intentionally created safe spaces where students could ask questions, feel valued and motivated to come to school. Students contributed meaningfully to school governance and extracurricular life, which in turn fostered strong school pride.
The book documents how teachers who viewed their students with “a pedagogy of hope” — not deficit — left lifelong impacts. Educators acted as mentors and models for civic responsibility, social justice, and excellence. They remind us that great teachers are those who believe in their students’ potential and challenge them with high expectations, rooted in empathy and respect. Many teachers credit SHS with being the best job they have ever held.
“An impassioned, well-researched history of a groundbreaking California public school.” — Kirkus Reviews
Now out in paperback!!!
Pre-order now from Bloomsbury, for a 10% discount.
Read the latest Review of Working-Class Kids in San Francisco Book Review:
Working-Class Kids “reconstructs the extraordinary story of a seemingly ordinary public school . . . What emerges is not only a chronicle of one school’s culture, but also a meditation on belonging, equity, and the transformative role educators can play in young lives.”
“education is not just about producing college-bound students. It is about giving adolescents pathways to resilience, identity, and contribution.”
Leigh’s Favorite Books in downtown Sunnyvale stocks copies of the new paperback version
