This book provides a detailed account of an educational experiment in a middle school in Shanghai, China. The school, called Zhabei No. 8 Middle School (hereafter No. 8 School), is located in a run-down, lower working class district. Since the mid-1980s the school has experimented on an educational reform program called success education, aiming to help those at-risk students to be successful in school. This book illustrates how this educational experiment has been carried out and to identify experiences that could be learned by the international educational community.
The book analyzes the critical role played by Principal Liu Jinghai, and particular attention is paid to the strategies adopted by the school to help enhance students' self-esteem through integrating love and care throughout the school's curriculum and activities. The pivotal roles played by teachers called "class directors" are meticulously studied, and efforts the school has made to collaborate with parents and the local community are examined. An ethnographic approach was used to gather data in this study. A combination of interviews, participant observation, and document analysis was applied to arrive at a systematic and complex understanding of this educational endeavor in China.