This may be the most important book on teaching and learning to have emerged in years. The authors have masterfully crafted an in-depth analysis of holistic education, while humanizing the multicultural experience as a pedagogical imperative. The text is well organized, clearly written, and meticulously researched. Faculty and students in teacher preparation programs, in graduate education programs, and those parents, administrators, and teachers working with children in today's classrooms will find this book timely, insightful, highly engaging, and critically essential. I applaud the authors for this most significant contribution to the field of education.

Thomas Nelson, professor of education, University of the Pacific and editor, Teacher Education Quarterly

In Understanding the Whole Student, Mayes and his associates emphasize how we are all culturally embedded beings. Taking a holistic perspective of cultural embeddedness (asserting that multicultural education isn't all about power relations), the book provocatively lays the groundwork for asking some questions that multicultural education may too often ignore: How does culture interact with the sensori-motor, psycho-social, cognitive, and ethico-spiritual dimensions of human nature? And what does it mean for education to be both holistic and multicultural? In a world where cultures are violently colliding, these are fundamental questions.

Robert Boostrom, chair, Department of Teacher Education, University of Southern Indiana and U.S. editor, The Journal of Curriculum Studies, and a