Education and Urban Society

Teacher candidates are central to the implementation of educational policy in schools, but receive little professional training around policy in their teacher education coursework or in their practicum experiences in the field. In examining this disconnect, this article explores the following questions: What do teacher candidates know about educational policy at the beginning of their student teaching practica? How do they envision their role with respect to policy? How does their participation in a critical discussion group around educational policy influence their perspectives? This article draws on qualitative data from a group of teacher education candidates enrolled in a student teaching practicum in Massachusetts. Analysis illustrates how teacher candidates make sense of educational policy via their university experiences and their field placements. Data suggest that critical discussion groups have potential to support increased capacity around teacher candidate policy engagement.

Immigration is a public issue that needs student exploration. This cross-disciplinary study brings awareness of diverse cultures by studying immigration through personal history in a multiethnic urban elementary school. Research suggests the importance of integrating assets students bring into the classroom in instruction. Changing pedagogies also emphasize the need for students to participate in community-based inquiries. This asset-based perspective centers students as knowledge producers, instead of knowledge consumers, making them active participants in learning.

Safety is one of the primary reasons why parents report seeking out a school of choice in depressed cities with a high proportion of charter schools. However, little empirical research has examined how parents assess school safety in these settings. This study explores factors that parents associate with school safety in Detroit, Michigan by conducting semi-structured interviews with parents (n = 31) in both charter and public schools. To contextualize parents’ perceptions of school safety, teachers (n = 23) were also interviewed. Findings indicate that parental perceptions of safety were shaped by school building conditions, school disciplinary environment, school-based parental involvement, student selection, and school location. These perceived indicators of safety suggest that components of school climate may be important for raising perceptions of safety in challenging contexts where school safety is a pressing concern.

The growing diversity of student populations within the public schools of the United States and the lack of diversity present in the current pool of certified teachers are of great interest to colleges and universities seeking to increase the diversity of teacher candidates. Researchers explored the factors that encouraged African American male teachers in a large southeastern public school division to complete an accredited teacher education program leading to state licensure. Completed questionnaires and structured interviews with 11 African American male educators from elementary and secondary classrooms provided data revealing the barriers, motivations, and supports related to the retention of African American males in college and university teacher preparation programs.

Response to intervention (RtI) is touted as an equity-focused provision of special education policy that holds promise for reducing overrepresentation and providing academic opportunities for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. However, teachers working to implement RtI have encountered complex challenges that stifle equitable outcomes. Employing the zone of mediation (ZOM) as the critical practice analysis framework, this qualitative study examined six high school teachers’ sense-making and engagement within an RtI framework, with specific attention to their data-based decision making (DbDM) for CLD students. We used an inductive analysis approach and developed three themes: (a) limited understanding, training, and support; (b) top-down accountability pressures; and (c) deficit views on student performance. These findings situated within the ZOM framework underscore complexities that render the promise of equity for CLD students impotent within an RtI model.

In response to the Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education Supreme Court decision, Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) reconfigured the district’s race-based student assignment and implemented a race- and socioeconomic-based student assignment plan. Using hierarchical linear multiple regression, this study examined students’ backgrounds and school composition factors within a race- and socioeconomic-based assignment plan to determine their relationship with college and career readiness as measured by the ACT. We found that student race, participation in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), ACT PLAN performance, school composition, and neighborhood category were the largest and most consistent factors for predicting college and career readiness. African American students were at a disadvantage in each model compared with White students. Participation in NSLP was negatively associated with student performance compared with non-NSLP students, and PLAN scores positively predicted ACT performance. School composition was found negatively associated with ACT performance (Title I compared with non–Title I schools), and Category 1 and Category 2 neighborhoods were negatively associated with ACT scores compared with Category 3 neighborhoods. We conclude by discussing implications for policy, practice, and future research.

Whether on a national or an international level, it is important to settle how values are comprehended and justified. This study investigates how university students in Turkey and Lithuania make sense of certain values. The study has a pattern of a case study. The respondent selection was made by benefiting from the studies conducted in both countries. The investigation reveals how three values (family, social justice, and freedom) were understood by university students in both countries, and how they were justified. The data were collected through one of the qualitative research methods, the semistructured interview. The respondents included 32 students from Lithuania, and 40 students from Turkey. The data were analyzed using the content analysis technique. The results of this study suggest that values can be perceived differently both in individual and social platforms, and that, depending on the part of the society they emerged from, values can be justified by various points of view rooting from religion, tradition, and culture.