Urban Education

Many educators suggest that novice teachers lack the preparation necessary to be successful in today's urban classrooms, particularly when the experiences of those novices are vastly different from their students. However, it can also be suggested that culturally responsive practices have the potential to counteract the “cultural disequilibrium” that many novices encounter. In this narrative case study, the author traces one novice teacher's journey within a diverse, urban classroom. Data from this study suggest that a novice teacher's support systems, administrator, professional development, and the capacity to take risks contribute to his or her effectiveness in the classroom. Implications for teacher educators include providing instructional and experiential modeling of culturally responsive practices, informing preservice teachers of current educational policies and strategies for becoming student advocates, and becoming engaged within schools to support the implementation of induction programs that authentically prepare novices to turn cultural “disequilibrium” into cultural responsivity.

This article presents a year-long qualitative study conducted in an “urban” high school, where 77% of the students were Latina/o and 100% of the teachers were White. A teacher in the school, the author studied four popular teachers for the (a) ways they could relate to students, (b) ways they could not relate, and (c) influences of teachers' Whiteness on relating. Findings show that teachers could relate to students through personal experiences but not through race or culture. Most teachers held exceedingly deficit views about the students' home lives, cultures, and families. Implications for the education of Latina/o schoolchildren are discussed.

This investigation sought to determine if there was a difference in the development of effective urban teacher characteristics after completing a traditional internship experience or a Professional Development School internship experience. The Urban Teacher Selection Interview was used to assess 10 characteristics including persistence, value of children's learning, putting ideas into practice, approach to at-risk students, professional/personal orientation to students, the bureaucracy, fallibility, teacher success, student success, and planning and organization. Assessments were completed before and after subjects participated in urban internships. Pre- and posttest scores were compared using descriptive statistics and a paired-samples t test. Results communicated no significant difference between pre- and posttest scores when student interns completed a traditional or Professional Development School internship experience. This suggests that although the internship experience is often viewed as the capstone experience of teacher preparation programs, short-term experiences do not adequately prepare teacher candidates for urban school teaching.

The differences in income, crime, health, mental health, and substance use among high school dropouts, GED recipients, and high school graduates are investigated. The study sample is drawn from the Chicago Longitudinal Study (CLS), an ongoing investigation of a panel of low-income minority children who grew up in the inner city. After controlling for sociodemographic factors, early cognitive skills, and participation in postsecondary education, results indicate that there are significant differences between dropouts and GED recipients, and between GED recipients and high school graduates in the five aspects of quarterly income equal to or above average, life satisfaction, future optimism, symptoms of severe depression, and substance use.