The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools

liberal democracy. So, in this sense at least, the answer to the question that forms the title of della Porta’s book, ‘‘can democracy be saved?’’, is yes. A different question, however, concerns what the future holds: will democracy be saved? No one can claim the answer to that question. However, della Porta’s exploration identifies three important barriers to such a wider transformation that merit further examination. The first is state resistance. In an important chapter on conflicts between these new social movements and governments, della Porta explores the emerging new strategies of police and state repression and control. They are, in some ways, as inventive as the democratic innovations she celebrates elsewhere in the book, though with different implications for democracy. More broadly, we can expect those who now enjoy the privileges of executive or representative power to resist the press for different kinds of democracy. Second, far from embracing state-originated democratic innovations, social movement organizations are often indifferent or skeptical (p. 173). Even though this skepticism is sometimes justified, it is difficult to see how democratic reform will achieve depth or scale absent working alliances between social movement organizations and political officials both committed to that goal. Finally, there is in most societies at present a dearth of political leaders who understand and are open to the project of deepening deliberation and participation in their governance institutions. Sometimes, as with the Workers’ Party in Brazil at the end of the twentieth century, there is a systematic confluence of interest among officials in the political success and expansion of participatory democracy. Much more often, however, officials’ commitments regarding democratic reform are idiosyncratic and episodic. How, then, can public officials be made to take a deeper interest in deepening their democratic institutions? Della Porta argues that social movements are the key, and she is likely correct. The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools, by Thomas A. DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2013. 277pp. $37.50 paper. ISBN: 9780871540515.