Outstanding Book Award 

2009 Recipient 
Paul Attewell and David E. Lavin. 2008. Passing the Torch: Does Higher Education for the Disadvantaged Pay Off Across the Generations? Russell Sage Foundation Publications.

At a moment when expanding access to higher education has re-emerged in national policy debates, Passing the Torch provides extensive evidence regarding the impact of open-access admissions. Derived from three decades of data, Attewell and Lavin’s complex set of conclusions have tremendous implications both for understanding the meaning of success and for future higher education policy. Expanding and sometimes running contrary to conventional wisdom, the authors show that beneficiaries of open access secure better jobs at higher wages, and that these benefits transfer across generations. Passing the Torch takes long-term measure of the cumulative, intergenerational value in expanding access to college.

The AERA Council established this award for the best book-length publication in educational research and development. To be considered for the Award, a book must be concerned with the improvement of the educational process through research or scholarly inquiry, must have a research base, and must have a copyright date of the past two years in the year in which the award is to be given. 

A book may be nominated by the author or by another scholar. The book may have been published anywhere in the world but must be available in English. No edited volumes are considered for the award. 

2008 - C. J. Pascoe - Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School
2007 - Rami Benbenishty & Ron Avi Astor - School Violence in Context
2006 - William G. Bowen, Martin A. Kurzweil & Eugene M. Tobin - Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education 
2005 - Mica Pollock - Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School, and Frederick D. Erickson - Talk and Social Theory
2004 - Amy J. Binder - Contentious Curricula: Afrocentrism and Creationism in American Public Schools 
2003 - No award made
2002 - Robin Alexander - Culture & Pedagogy 
2001 - Jeannie Oakes, Karen Hunter Qurtz, Steve Ryan and Martin Lipton - Becoming Good American Schools 
2000 - Angela Valenzuela - Subtractive Schooling: U.S. Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring 
1999 - John M. Willinsky - Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire's End 
1998 - Linda Darling-Hammond - The Right to Learn 
1997 - L. Scott Miller - An American Imperative 
1996 - David C. Berliner & Bruce J. Biddle - The Manufactured Crisis 
1995 - Jeffrey Mirel - The Rise and Fall of an Urban School System: Detroit 1970-1981 
1994 - No Award Given
1993 - Joan DelFattore & Jonathan Kozol
1992 - David B. Tyack, Elizabeth Hansot, Teun A. Van Dijk & Idit Harel
1991 - Stephen Brint & Jerome Karabel
1990 - James D. Anderson
1989 - Burton R. Clark & David F. Labaree
1988 - James C. Coleman & Thomas Hoffer
1987 - Robert J. Sternberg
1986 - David John Hogan
1985 - John I. Goodlad
1984 - Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot, Teun A. Van Dijk & Walter Kintsch
1983 - Stephen Jay Gould & Carol Gilligan