Learning in Context and Practicing in Place: Engaging Preservice Teachers in Urban-Focused Context Specific Teacher Education

Teacher education programs are increasingly taking up commitments to prepare new teachers for equitable teaching. Despite best intentions, programs feel challenged to help candidates translate these commitments into classroom practice. Using a context-specific teacher education framework, we conducted a mixed-methods study of seven urban-focused programs to understand how they targeted preparation for urban contexts. We found that while programs offer multiple opportunities to learn about content embedded in context, fewer opportunities exist for candidates to practice in context, and that faculty play a critical bridging role in designing practice opportunities that are informed by program vision.

Fostering Youth Sociopolitical Action: The Roles of Critical Reflection, Sociopolitical Efficacy, and Transformative Student Voice

Critical pedagogies often prioritize critical thinking and social awareness at the expense of preparing urban youth for social action. Though sociopolitical efficacy is argued to bridge critical reflection and social action, this relationship is undetermined. We argue that critical reflection and sociopolitical efficacy are independent predictors of sociopolitical action. We surveyed 158 high-school students and found that critical reflection and sociopolitical efficacy were positively related to sociopolitical action. Additionally, participation in transformative student voice (TSV) and classroom leadership opportunities positively influenced sociopolitical efficacy. We argue that educators and community organizers should promote leadership development and TSV activities to encourage youth sociopolitical efficacy and action.

“We, as Parents, Do Have a Voice”: Learning from Community-Based Programs Effectively Engaging Parents in Urban Communities

Utilizing Yosso’s community cultural wealth framework as a theoretical lens, we sought to examine how nontraditional, community-based family engagement programs impacted adult family members’ thoughts and actions about engagement with their children's schools. The study drew primarily from the interviews, observations, and document analysis of two nontraditional family engagement programs in urban communities. Findings indicate that program approaches built upon and extended families’ social and navigational capitals. Educational leaders can more meaningfully engage urban families by learning from and incorporating practices implemented by the programs we examine and discuss in this article.

How Principals Balance Control and Care in Urban School Discipline

School discipline has been a site of contention and reform. In this study, we draw from 17 interviews with traditional and charter school principals in one mid-sized urban school district to examine how principals use discipline as a tool to both maintain control and demonstrate care. Our study calls attention to different strategies principals use to establish this balance, including reducing suspensions, moderating “no-excuses” systems, and building positive student–teacher relationships. We also make a theoretical contribution by showing how schools and school leaders respond to competing institutional logics in developing practices and policies.

Arts Learning Across a City: How Ecosystem Thinking Helps Shape Understanding of Black-Centered and Eurocentric Arts Programming

Given historical patterns of unequal access to arts education, we used an ecosystem perspective to investigate Black Centered Arts and Eurocentric Arts in a mid-sized U.S. city, with a focus on youth programs, museums, and other youth arts organizations. We found that practitioner-leaders valued arts quality, equitable access, community embeddedness, and cultural preservation. Programs that provided access to Eurocentric arts tended to be older, larger, and better funded, and network analysis revealed a subnetwork made up largely of Black Centered Arts organizations. Results will inform an ongoing research-practice-philanthropy partnership structured to develop a more equitable city-wide arts ecosystem.

Persistence Despite Structural Barriers: Investigating Work Environments for Black and Latinx Teachers in Urban and Suburban Schools

Research suggests that work environments are associated with turnover patterns for teachers of Color. This study investigates variation in work environments using longitudinal administrative data from 20 large urban and suburban K-12 school districts. Results indicate that teachers of Color are more often employed in “hard-to-staff” work environments compared to their White colleagues. Despite this, findings demonstrate high relative levels of teacher experience in schools where teachers of Color, specifically Latinx educators, represent a majority of the teaching staff. These results have implications for educational policy and practice, specifically in the areas of teacher preparation, recruitment, hiring, and retention.

It's Just the Wilson Way: Investigating the Extended Impact of an Elementary Full-Service Community School Initiative on Middle School STEM-Related Outcomes

This study investigated the sustained impact from elementary fullservice community school programming on middle school STEM academic outcomes that could lead to greater college and career readiness, as well as increased STEM career options for underserved urban students. Quantitative findings suggest middle school youth who attended an elementary full-service community school performed better on middle school STEM outcomes and were predicted to be more prepared to graduate and enter a STEM-related field than a matched comparison of peers who did not. Qualitative results explain differences. Two meta-inferences, informal facilitation of STEM and sustained fullservice community school impact, frame the discussion.

“Inter-District School Transfers and the Role of Educators in Black Students’ Sense of School Belonging”

Inter-district racial and socioeconomic segregation continue to affect students’ educational opportunities. Housing mobility programs provide a way for low-income families to access lower-poverty and higher-performing schools in nearby districts. However, changing schools is also disruptive for students. Through interviews with 67 low-income Black youth who moved from Baltimore city into the suburbs with a mobility program, we examine how students’ interactions with educators shaped their school transition. Educators who provided academic and interpersonal support helped mitigate disruption by promoting students’ sense of school belonging. Yet, we find significant heterogeneity in the support students received as they entered new schools.

Seeking Support in Teacher Education for Racial Knowledge: The Role of Professional Networks and Social Identities

Drawing from the narrated experiences of teacher educators (TEs) at different institutions, this paper analyzes TEs’ perceptions of support related to their work in teaching about race and racism. TEs varied in the extent to which they viewed their institution as supportive, and they identified factors that signaled that their institution supported teacher learning about race and racism. TEs also described how their racial identities and positional privilege related to tenure status informed engagement with peers both for providing and seeking support. Implications for teacher education programs in providing support for TEs who teach about race and racism are discussed.

‘Foreigners in Our Schools’ : Cultural Diversity, Othering, and the Desire for Justice in Schools

This study explored ‘cultural diversity’ in urban schools in Portugal by conducting discourse analysis on interviews with school practitioners. Findings show that ‘cultural diversity’ was dominantly anchored in Othering ‘foreigners’ that mainly associated ‘non-native speakers’ to difficulties in integration, participation and teachers’pedagogical work. However, contradicting discourses somewhat resisted Othering by highlighting meaningful differences, all students’ rights, and calling for pedagogical changes. By showing the ambivalences in how students, teachers and pedagogical relationships are viewed, we both alert for an exclusionary conceptualization of ‘cultural diversity’, and question Othering as a fundamentalizing discourse to fully govern ‘cultural diversity’ in schools.