Scholar-Practitioner Reflections on the Urban Education Contexts of Race and Social Class in the Current Climate of Standards and Accountability
Th e complexity of urban education continues to be a challenge for urban educators. Th is paper explores the urban education context of race and social class in the current climate of standards and accountability through the refl ections of two public school scholar-practitioners. First, the fundamental tenets of scholar-practitioner leadership are presented in the context of a critical pragmatic praxis. Th e perspectives of two Philadelphia scholar-practitioner urban educators in their attempts to deal with urban educational complexity in relation to the infl uences of race, social class, and the standards and accountability mandates are presented. Th e one educator is a charter school Social Studies Department chairperson, and the other is the academic facilitator for a tech prep consortium at a Philadelphia community college. Additionally, both educators discuss how the scholar-practitioner concept positions them to better deal with the complex challenges of urban education.
Preservice Teachers’ Learning about Cultural and Racial Diversity
Several essential interactions or experiences that had an influence on preservice teachers’ learning and understanding about urban education and diversity are described and discussed. In particular, the author introduces a developmental typology that was used to analyze the preservice teachers’ learning and understanding as a result of a course designed to help preservice teachers develop the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and attitudes necessary to teach in highly diverse and urban school contexts. These developmental interactions that made a critical difference in the preservice teachers’ learning included cultural and racial awareness and insight, critical reflection, and a bridge between theory and practice. Understanding the influence of courses in teacher education that endeavor to provide learning spaces for preservice teachers is especially important as we document the most salient ways to provide all prospective teachers with what they need to make meaningful and significant differences in P-12 urban classrooms.
Historias de mi barrio: contemporary art in a community at high risk of social exclusion
Abstract Historias de mi barrio is a piece of pedagogic research aimed at highlighting the way art can articulate the relationship between the educational context and a neighbourhood at high risk of social exclusion. The starting point for this study was to ask whether this type of research, centred around the arts, was suitable in complex contexts and whether it might eventually lead to pedagogic improvement. The results gathered, and indeed the work carried out by the artists and university lecturers involved, together with pupils 6–12 years old and their instructors in a state school, provide evidence of a positive answer – and notably of the necessity of knowing about the socio-economic reality of the student cohort when planning learning projects and of the importance of the arts as a crucial element in education.