Review of Brothers in Grief: The Hidden Toll of Gun Violence on Black Boys and Their Schools, by Nora Gross
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14507/er.v33.4633Abstract
Brothers in Grief by Nora Gross is a poignant, deeply moving ethnographic account of the untimely and violent deaths of Black boys that have occured in a short time span at the elite, charter school, Boys' Prep in Philadelphia. Gross's book sheds light on societal violence, especially in Philadelphia, structural barriers to grief in educational institutions, and racialized masculinity leading to stoicism and repression of emotional expression among Black males.
Author Biography
Jullett Frazer-Sadaar, University of Texas at El Paso
Jullett A. Frazer-Sadaar is a PhD candidate in the Teaching, Learning and Culture program at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her studies focus on justice-oriented education, with particular attention to the literacy and schooling experiences of boys in Caribbean and transnational contexts. Her work is informed by critical pedagogy, culturally sustaining pedagogy, and justice-focused theoretical frameworks. Prior to her doctoral studies, Frazer-Sadaar held senior leadership roles in Jamaican secondary education, including service as a high school principal. Her current research includes archival and historical analyses of educational governance, in addition to contemporary qualitative studies, examining teachers’ perspectives on and adaptation of computer science resources in K-12 schools and culturally sustaining pedagogical design for boys.
References
Blume Oeur, F. (2018). Black boys apart: Racial uplift and respectability in all-male public schools. University of Minnesota Press.
Hooker, J. (2023). Black grief/white grievance: The politics of loss. Princeton University Press.
Warikoo, N. (2022). Race at the top: Asian Americans and whites in pursuit of the American dream in suburban schools. University of Chicago Press.
[Book reviewed] Gross, N. (2023). Brothers in grief: The hidden toll of gun violence on Black boys and their schools. University of Chicago Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Jullett Frazer-Sadaar
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, who grants right of first publication to the Education Review. Readers are free to copy, display, distribute, and adapt this article, as long as the work is attributed to the author(s) and Education Review, the changes are identified, and the same license applies to the derivative work.
All journal content from 1998-2020 and was published under an earlier Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0
