High-poverty Urban Communities Research Articles

Dialogic teacher inquiry: The case of a preservice teacher learning to facilitate class discussion

Developing knowledge and practice for high-quality K-12 class discussion remains challenging, especially for new teachers juggling other classroom responsibilities. Our study reports the case of a preservice teacher learning to lead discussions while enrolled in a teacher education inquiry course, simultaneous with semester-long supervised practice teaching in a seventh-grade class (12-13-year-olds) in a high-poverty urban community. The work is guided by a complex teacher learning process for developing complex practice of facilitating discussions in culturally and linguistically diverse high school English classes. Countering popular approaches to “talk moves” as useful but often generic facilitation practices, the teacher education pedagogical innovation we describe positions teachers as knowledge-generating, agentive professionals. Our conceptual framework for teacher learning features dialogic teacher inquiry, with three domains. The first domain involves moving beyond methods texts to dialoguing analytically with and among multiple print, online, and mentor resources for supporting development of a dialogic teaching stance. The second domain intentionally guides new teachers to explore classroom data and consider students as knowledge resources in shaping instruction. The third domain sustains dialogue about discussion processes and evolving conceptions of dialogism in small groups of preservice teacher collectives, enabling sharing of inquiry data, emerging findings, and dilemmas of practice. Drawing upon a larger database, we present a case study demonstrating one preservice teacher’s inquiry work with deep analysis of student talk, detailed memoing processes featuring challenges and benefits of developing dialogic teaching practices, thoughtful criticism of long-established discussion practices, and discoveries about nuances of dialogic teaching. Our case contributes to the literature by presenting an example of dialogic pedagogy for teacher education, in service of preservice teachers learning to lead classroom discussions. Additional innovative pedagogical designs are needed to assist teachers in gaining complex knowledge and practice for teaching and promoting meaningful and learning-rich talk in K-12 classrooms.

Refractive Error Findings in Students Who Failed School-based Vision Screening

ABSTRACT Purpose To report refractive error findings in Baltimore City schoolchildren who failed school-based vision screenings. Methods In this cross-sectional analysis, students pre-kindergarten through 8th grade who failed screenings during school years 2016–2019 received an eye examination, including non-cycloplegic autorefraction and visual acuity (VA) measurements. Refractive error was identified when there was at least: −0.50 diopter (D) spherical equivalent (SE) myopia, +0.50D SE hyperopia, 1.00D astigmatism, or 1.00D anisometropia in either eye. Generalized estimating equation models were used to identify factors associated with clinically significant refractive error, defined as decreased VA and more severe refractive error. Results Of 7520 students who failed screening, 6627 (88%) were analyzed. Clinically significant refractive error and any refractive error were found in 2352 (35.5%) and 5952 (89.8%) students, respectively. Mild myopia (45%, −0.50 D to <-3.00 D SE) and low astigmatism (47%, 1.00 D to <3.00 D cylinder) were the most prevalent types of refractive error. Proportions of students with myopia increased with higher grade levels (Ptrend<0.001). Myopia and astigmatism were more common in black and Latinx. Risk factors for clinically significant refractive error included higher grades (odds ratios [OR] ranged from 1.30 to 2.19 compared with 1st grade, P < .05) and Latinx ethnicity (OR = 1.31, 95%CI: 1.08–1.59). Conclusion A Baltimore school-based vision program identified a substantial number of students with refractive error in a high-poverty urban community. Over 1/3 students who failed vision screening had clinically significant refractive error, with black and Latinx students at higher risk of having myopia and astigmatism.

A randomized controlled trial of instructional coaching in high-poverty urban schools: Examining teacher practices and student outcomes

Job-embedded professional development is needed to effectively and efficiently enhance teachers' use of evidence-based practices in high-poverty urban communities. This study employed a three-cohort, waitlist controlled, randomized block design to investigate the effectiveness of the Classroom Strategies Coaching Model (CSC) in 14 high-poverty urban elementary schools. The CSC Model is guided by observations of teachers' instructional and behavioral management practices as measured by the Classroom Strategies Assessment System. Primary dependent measures included teacher use of evidence-based practices, student academic engagement, and teacher ratings of class wide student academic and behavior functioning along with perceived instrumental support, emotional support, and stress. The sample included 2195 students and 106 teachers randomly assigned to CSC coaching or waitlist control. Multilevel negative binomial modeling revealed that teachers in the CSC coaching condition had significant improvements in the frequency of academic praise (used 1.74 times more frequently) and behavior praise (used 2.10 times more frequently) as compared to teachers in the waitlist control condition. Multilevel linear models revealed that, relative to the waitlist control condition, teachers in the CSC coaching condition demonstrated significant improvements in quality of instruction (d = 0.52), behavior management (d = 0.60), and class wide student academic engagement (d = 0.41). Teachers reported significant improvements in class wide student academic (d = 0.96) and behavioral functioning (d = 1.24), instrumental support (d = 0.90) and emotional support (d = 1.04). No change was found for teacher stress. Implications for research and practice are reviewed.

Engaging Parents in Mental Health Services: A Qualitative Study of Community Health Workers' Strategies in High Poverty Urban Communities.

Empirical engagement-promoting strategies in child and family mental health services have been identified largely within the context of clinic-based services delivered by mental health professionals. However, the magnitude of unmet youth mental health need necessitates expanding the scope of mental health services, and the associated engagement strategies, beyond traditional models and service providers. The present study aimed to extend our understanding of engagement strategies to a school-based mental health service model, using a community health worker (CHW) workforce implementing an early intervention program with parents and school-aged children (K-4) in high poverty urban communities. Qualitative semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 16 CHWs to capture their descriptions of the engagement strategies they utilized with parents throughout program implementation. Transcripts were coded and themes were identified following procedures for thematic analysis. Thematic analyses revealed ten themes describing a range of engagement strategies falling into two overarching categories: (1) rapport building, and (2) responsive delivery. Themes within the rapport building category included non-judgmental supportive listening, increasing social proximity, praise, privacy and confidentiality, and leveraging relationships. Themes within the responsive delivery category included flexibility, consistency, advocacy, incentives, and meeting needs. Findings provide preliminary evidence regarding the ability of CHWs to identify and implement a range of engagement strategies with parents and families that parallel empirically-based engagement strategies in traditional services. These findings speak to the potential of this workforce to engage underserved families in mental health services, underscoring the important role for CHWs in reducing mental health disparities.

A Beautiful Struggle: Reimagining Neighborhood Schools in Urban Communities

Background/Context Historians of education have chronicled the essential link between schools and communities from a variety of perspectives, exploring how ideology, material conditions, and political struggles have shaped public education. Viewing school reform historically allows us to see how schools are tied to their particular contexts, breathing in and out the values, beliefs, and conditions of local communities. This link is especially important to acknowledge in the high-poverty urban communities targeted by school reformers in the current policy landscape, which pits privatization against local democratic control of schools. This paper contributes to scholarship on school reform by portraying a local struggle to reimagine a longstanding neighborhood urban school in the context of an expanding marketplace of school choices. Purpose Our study uses an asset-based community school development framework to analyze the rich 90-year history of a particular school in the greater Los Angeles area. We were guided by the following research questions: (1) What are the multiple and overlapping demographic, political, educational policy, social, and economic contexts that have shaped or defined the history of the school since its opening? (2) How has this history shaped the community's relationship to the school now? (3) How does this history inform current efforts to increase public will and community engagement at the school? Research Design We conducted this historical case study as participants of a local design team comprised of university and school partners charged with re-envisioning a struggling neighborhood middle school as a K–12 university-assisted community school. Data sources included artifacts, primary and secondary historical sources, and in-depth semistructured interviews with a purposive sample of 14 current and past staff, faculty, alumni, parents, and community members. Findings/Results Our findings are visualized in a timeline that captures the school's reform history, changing demographics, and community context across three periods of school reform. We interpret this history by focusing on three tensions: reform means versus ends, public versus private goods, and critical hope versus despair. By grappling with these democratic tensions, we conclude, urban communities can counter the dominant policy discourse of failing and turnaround schools to reimagine the promise of neighborhood schools as anchor democratic institutions in urban communities. Conclusions/Recommendations We recommend that community school reformers consider local histories of neighborhood schools and their communities as important reform assets. Reflecting on these histories can help establish a shared understanding of education as a public good, affirm the linked fate of schools and communities, and set the stage for collective problem-solving.

Collaboration with Urban Community Stakeholders: Refining Paraprofessional‐led Services to Promote Positive Parenting

This paper describes the process of a community-academic partnership to navigate implementation challenges for a school-based service model led by paraprofessionals to promote positive parenting in high poverty urban communities. We describe the process by which we (a) identified implementation challenges, (b) sustained a university-community collaboration to redesign the paraprofessional service model, and (c) assessed the feasibility of the new model involving four social service agencies in 16 schools with over 600 families. The structure and process of the collaboration and refinement are described with attention to who was best positioned to engage in the collaboration and how the partnership worked to balance scientific rigor with responsiveness to paraprofessional workforce strengths. Feasibility data indicated that the revised model was successfully implemented by paraprofessional staff; 92.2% of possible staff monthly reports were completed and discussion of key goals was incorporated into 94.2% of interactions. Continual monitoring provided critical feedback from stakeholders as we drew on and interpreted these various sources of information to build and refine the service model. We suggest that these processes are critical steps to bridge the research-to-practice gap, by promoting practices that are aligned with the needs of children and families, and the staff who serve them.

Geospatial patterns of access to self-care resources for obesity among endometrial cancer survivors in a high poverty urban community

ObjectiveTo examine endometrial cancer survivors' access to recommended obesity-related self-care resources. MethodsParticipants included women treated 2010–2015 for endometrial cancer at an academic medical center who lived in the surrounding 16 ZIP code area on Chicago's South Side. Demographic and health data were abstracted from medical records. A socioeconomic status (SES) score (SES-1 = low, SES-5 = high) was generated for each patient using census block group-level data. Self-care resources for exercise, healthy weight, and diet were obtained from a community resource census. Geospatial techniques assessed “walkable access” (~½-mile radius around a patient's home) to obesity-related resources. Multivariable logistic regression investigated associations between access to obesity-related resources and patient characteristics. ResultsOf 195 endometrial cancer survivors, 81% identified as Black/African American and 34% lived in an SES-1 census block. Two thirds (68%) had Stage I or II endometrial cancer. Nearly two thirds (62%) were obese (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2). Obesity was inversely associated with SES (p = 0.05). Two thirds of survivors had access to at least one of all three recommended resource types. Access was lower in low SES regions and among Black/African American women. Lower SES was associated with lower odds of walkable access to recommended resources (AOR for access to two of each resource type 0.75, 95%CI 0.59, 0.97; AOR for access to three or more of each 0.44, 95%CI 0.32, 0.61). ConclusionsObesity rates were higher and access to recommended resources was lower for Black/African American endometrial cancer survivors living in high poverty areas in Chicago.

Endometrial cancer survivors’ access to recommended self-care resources to target obesity in a high poverty urban community

Endometrial cancer survivors’ access to recommended self-care resources to target obesity in a high poverty urban community

Health-Specific Information and Communication Technology Use and Its Relationship to Obesity in High-Poverty, Urban Communities: Analysis of a Population-Based Biosocial Survey.

BackgroundMore than 35% of American adults are obese. For African American and Hispanic adults, as well as individuals residing in poorer or more racially segregated urban neighborhoods, the likelihood of obesity is even higher. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) may substitute for or complement community-based resources for weight management. However, little is currently known about health-specific ICT use among urban-dwelling people with obesity.ObjectiveWe describe health-specific ICT use and its relationship to measured obesity among adults in high-poverty urban communities.MethodsUsing data collected between November 2012 and July 2013 from a population-based probability sample of urban-dwelling African American and Hispanic adults residing on the South Side of Chicago, we described patterns of ICT use in relation to measured obesity defined by a body mass index (BMI) of ≥30 kg/m2. Among those with BMI≥30 kg/m2, we also assessed the association between health-specific ICT use and diagnosed versus undiagnosed obesity as well as differences in health-specific ICT use by self-reported comorbidities, including diabetes and hypertension.ResultsThe survey response rate was 44.6% (267 completed surveys/598.4 eligible or likely eligible individuals); 53.2% were African American and 34.6% were Hispanic. More than 35% of the population reported an annual income of less than US $25,000. The population prevalence of measured obesity was 50.2%. People with measured obesity (BMI≥30 kg/m2) were more likely to report both general (81.5% vs 67.0%, P=.04) and health-specific (61.1% vs 41.2%, P=.01) ICT use. In contrast, among those with measured obesity, being told of this diagnosis by a physician was not associated with increased health-specific ICT use. People with measured obesity alone had higher rates of health-specific use than those with comorbid hypertension and/or diabetes diagnoses (77.1% vs 60.7% vs 47.4%, P=.04).ConclusionsIn conclusion, ICT-based health resources may be particularly useful for people in high-poverty urban communities with isolated measured obesity, a population that is at high risk for poor health outcomes.

Coming Up or Coming to Grips? Upward Mobility, the American Dream, and Young Residents of Houston’s Fifth Ward

ABSTRACTThe ethos of the American Dream is such that an individual’s efforts, abilities, and responsible choices can spur a more prosperous economic future. For the urban poor, this ethos can be elusive. If rejected, it may vindicate the defeatism and fatalism alleged by cultural deficiency frameworks. If accepted, it may corroborate claims that social isolation leaves the poor unaware of the extent of the barriers to upward mobility. Through participant observation and ethnographic fieldwork with young residents of a high-poverty urban community, I probe the participants’ assessments of the ambiguities and contradictions of the American Dream. Results indicate that the participants’ faith in meritocratic individualism in prescriptive terms related to future success as well as in remedial terms in order to reconcile self-blame and internalized failure. I interpret these results in light of prevailing frameworks on the cultural contexts of urban poverty.

Educating Amid Uncertainty

Purpose: We examine how uncertainty, both about students and the context in which they are taught, remains a persistent condition of teachers’ work in high-poverty, urban schools. We describe six schools’ organizational responses to these uncertainties, analyze how these responses reflect open- versus closed-system approaches, and examine how this orientation affects teachers’ work. Research Methods: We draw on interviews with a diverse set of 95 teachers and administrators across a purposive sample of six high-poverty, urban schools in one district. We analyzed these interviews by drafting thematic summaries, coding interview transcripts, creating data-analytic matrices, and writing analytic memos. Findings: We find that students introduced considerable uncertainty into teachers’ work. Although most teachers we spoke with embraced the challenges of their work and the expanded responsibilities that it entailed, they recognized that their individual efforts were not sufficient to succeed. Teachers consistently spoke about the need for organizational responses that addressed the environmental uncertainty of working with students from low-income families whose experience in school often has been unsuccessful. We describe four types of organizational responses—coordinated instructional supports, systems to promote order and discipline, socioemotional supports for students, and efforts to engage parents—and illustrate how these responses affected teachers’ ability to manage the uncertainty introduced by their environment. Conclusions: Traditional public schools are open systems and require systematic organizational responses to address the uncertainty introduced by their environments. Uncoordinated individual efforts alone are not sufficient to meet the needs of students in high-poverty urban communities.

Redesigning community mental health services for urban children: Supporting schooling to promote mental health.

This study examined a school- and home-based mental health service model, Links to Learning, focused on empirical predictors of learning as primary goals for services in high-poverty urban communities. Teacher key opinion leaders were identified through sociometric surveys and trained, with mental health providers and parent advocates, on evidence-based practices to enhance children's learning. Teacher key opinion leaders and mental health providers cofacilitated professional development sessions for classroom teachers to disseminate 2 universal (Good Behavior Game, peer-assisted learning) and 2 targeted (Good News Notes, Daily Report Card) interventions. Group-based and home-based family education and support were delivered by mental health providers and parent advocates for children in kindergarten through 4th grade diagnosed with 1 or more disruptive behavior disorders. Services were Medicaid-funded through 4 social service agencies (N = 17 providers) in 7 schools (N = 136 teachers, 171 children) in a 2 (Links to Learning vs. services as usual) × 6 (pre- and posttests for 3 years) longitudinal design with random assignment of schools to conditions. Services as usual consisted of supported referral to a nearby social service agency. Mixed effects regression models indicated significant positive effects of Links to Learning on mental health service use, classroom observations of academic engagement, teacher report of academic competence and social skills, and parent report of social skills. Nonsignificant between-groups effects were found on teacher and parent report of problem behaviors, daily hassles, and curriculum-based measures. Effects were strongest for young children, girls, and children with fewer symptoms. Community mental health services targeting empirical predictors of learning can improve school and home behavior for children living in high-poverty urban communities.

Benefits of the Michiana Daily Mathtracks Programme for students living in poverty

This paper summarizes results from a math intervention implemented in a high-poverty urban community. Over 7,300 students from kindergarten to 4th grade in 1 low-socioeconomic-status school district participated in the study. Students from 13 different schools (36 different classroom) participated in the treatment. Comparisons were made to purposely selected control-group schools and all other students in the district. The aim of the intervention was to help early elementary-age students living in poverty learn essential math facts and master basic computational skills as a foundation for improving their math ability. The study used a pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental design with control and treatment groups. Achievement for both groups was compared to that of the school district as a whole, with analysis disaggregated by poverty status. The results found positive gains in the treatment group's math achievement at every grade level, transcending differences in socioeconomic status.

Use of a storytelling context to improve girls' and boys' geometry skills in kindergarten

Two studies investigated the effects of a storytelling-context for teaching geometry skills to kindergarten girls and boys. In Study 1, the story+geometry intervention consisted of an adventure story teaching geometry through part-whole-relations puzzles. Learning was assessed through transfer of skills, using a pre-/post design comparing intervention and control groups. A near-transfer task included new puzzle-problems with the same puzzle-pieces as the intervention, and a far-transfer task used a wider variety of puzzle-pieces. In Study 1, using diverse suburban students from a lower–middle-class-community, boys improved independent of intervention/control condition on the near-transfer task, whereas girls showed greater improvement with the intervention, than without it. No effects of condition or sex were found on far transfer. Study 2 compared two types of interventions (storytelling+geometry versus geometry-alone) to determine effectiveness of a storytelling-context separate from geometry-content. Findings for the Study 2 sample of diverse kindergartners from a high-poverty urban community showed that storytelling-contexts were more effective than de-contextualized formats for learning geometry across both near- and far-transfer tasks. Across studies, girls benefited more than boys from the geometry-content interventions (both with and without a story context).

School-Based Mental Health Services for Children Living in High Poverty Urban Communities

Studied the effectiveness of a school-based mental health service model, PALS (Positive Attitudes toward Learning in School), focused on increasing initial and ongoing access to services, and promoting improved classroom and home behavior for children referred for Disruptive Behavior Disorder (DBD) from three high poverty urban elementary schools. Classrooms were randomly assigned to PALS or referral to a neighborhood mental health clinic, with children identified by teacher referral and follow-up parent andeher ratings. Results indicated significant service engagement and retention for PALS (n=60) versus families referred to clinic (n=30), with over 80% of PALS families retained in services for 12 months. PALS services were correlated with positive changes in children's behavior as rated by parents, and with improvements in children's academic performance as rated by teachers. Implications for the design and delivery of mental health services for children and families living in high-poverty urban communities are discussed.

The Importance of Presence: Immigrant Parents’ School Engagement Experiences

The authors have been engaged in research focused on how parents in high-poverty urban communities negotiate understandings and build sustaining relationships with others in school settings. In this article, the authors draw upon ethnographic methodology to report on the stories of three working-class immigrant parents and their efforts to participate in their children’s formal education. Their stories are used as exemplars to illuminate the challenges immigrant parents face as they work to participate in their children’s schooling. In contrasting the three stories, the authors argue that parental engagement needs to be understood through parents’ presence in schooling, regardless of whether that presence is in a formal school space or in more personal, informal spaces, including those created by parents themselves.

Traveller Horses, Local Authorities and Public Policy in Contemporary Ireland

Summary The practice of keeping horses is a central part of Irish Traveller culture although it does not figure very large in the literature on Irish Travellers. In recent years, this practice has become a locus of policy intervention. The use of the Control of Horses Act, 1996, as a solution to the wandering horse problem threatens to devalue the horse-keeping tradition and marginalize Travellers from mainstream settled society. Introduction The purpose of this article (1) is to critically examine public policy with respect to the control of 'wandering horses' owned by Travellers (2) in Ireland, a topic that has received little scholarly attention. While horses are often mentioned or alluded to in key anthropological works or depicted in photographic images in them, rarely is this feature of Traveller culture interrogated in a systematic way with the result that our understanding of it is somewhat limited. For example, Gmelch (1977) devotes just three pages to a discussion of horses while in Helleiner (2000) horses are mentioned only rarely. In McCann, O Siochain and Ruane (1994) there is an occasional reference to horses. The work of Saris et al. (2000) is one of the few scholarly articles that directly bears on the issue of Traveller horses but this important piece of anthropological research is limited to the experiences of one high-poverty urban community in Dublin. Thus, the present paper attempts to contribute to our understanding of Irish Travellers by examining current policy and practice with respect to Traveller horses. The paper explores the implications of public policy for Traveller culture and specifies the contribution anthropologists and sociologists can make to current thinking and policy decisions about this important, though often neglected, dimension of Irish Traveller culture. This analysis draws on the author's personal experience working as a housing liaison officer in a local authority housing setting in a midland town in Ireland over an 18-month period, work which was concerned with the day-to-day management of local authority housing estates. The article claims that public policy fails to deal adequately with the underlying condition that creates the wandering horse problem in the first place--the lack of adequate grazing land for Travellers living in local authority-provided housing and halting sites. Moreover, I argue that public policy with respect to Traveller horses, as reflected in the provisions of the Control of Horses Act, 1996, (henceforth, 'The Act') relating to the licensing, seizure and detention of horses, threatens to devalue Traveller culture and marginalize Travellers from mainstream sedentary society. To provide a context for the paper, I begin by exploring change and continuity in the place of horses in Traveller culture. This is followed by a description and analysis of the two principal policy responses to the wandering horse problem--the Control of Horses Act, 1996. and youth horse projects, with a particular focus on the Act. The final section of the article sheds some light on the policy implications of this analysis and the linkage between policy and culture. The Place of Horses in Irish Traveller Culture: Continuity and Change Travellers are Ireland's indigenous 'Other'. They share the same skin colour as white settled people and are not easily identifiable as Travellers on the basis of physical features alone. Yet, Travellers are considered as outsiders in their own society or, as Mac Laughlin puts it, they are at best considered as: An incongruous social residue from a pre-modern past, a people to be paternalistically admired for their determination to remain doggedly true to an unconventional lifestyle in a rapidly changing and increasingly materialistic and 'settled' society. (Mac Laughlin 1995: 10) One feature of that lifestyle that is viewed as unconventional and increasingly as uncivilized in contemporary consumer-oriented Ireland is the practice of keeping horses. …