Inner-city School Research Articles

‘seeing’ with/in the world: becoming-little

Critical posthumanism is an invitation to think differently about knowledge and educational relationality between humans and the more-than-human. This philosophical and political shift in subjectivity builds on, and is entangled with, poststructuralism and phenomenology. In this paper we read diffractively through one another the theories of Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa and feminist posthumanists Karen Barad and Rosi Braidotti. We explore the implications of the so-called ‘ontological turn’ for early childhood education. With its emphasis on a moving away from the dominant role of human vision (knowing and seeing) in educational research we show how videoing and photographing works as an apparatus in an analysis of data from an inner-city school in Johannesburg, South Africa. We are struck by children’s seeing with the ‘eyes of their skin’ (Pallasmaa) and ‘seeing’ with/in the world (posthumanism), as their obvious distress is felt when a small tree sapling has been mowed down in a nearby park. We analyse the event with the help of a variation on Deleuze’s notion of ‘becoming-child’: ‘becoming-little’, and Anna Tsing’s ‘the arts of noticing’. ‘Becoming-little’ as a methodology disrupts the adult/child binary that positions ‘little’, younger humans as inferior to their ‘bigger’ fully human counterparts. We exemplify ‘becoming-little’ through 4 and 5 year-olds’ learning with the little tree and adopt Barad’s temporal diffraction to ‘see’ what is in/visible in the park: the extractive, exploitative, colonising mining practices of White settlers. These are still part of the land on which the park was created but are in/visible beneath the ‘skin’ of the earth.

Exploring Teachers’ Experience with the Implementation of the National Standards Curriculum in an Inner-City Primary School in Kingston, Jamaica

This research sought to explore teachers’ experiences with the implementation of the National Standards Curriculum (NSC) in an inner-city primary school in Kingston, Jamaica. The findings revealed that the teachers viewed the NSC as an excellent curriculum that allows students to think critically, connect to real life situations, and develop learning skills for STEM integration.

Teachers' experiences with the use of Differentiated Instruction in a Jamaican Inner-City Primary School

This generic qualitative study presents the experiences of four teachers using differentiated instruction in an inner-city Jamaican primary school. The purpose was to ascertain the teachers’ understanding, perception, and the challenges they experienced with the use of differentiated instruction. The data from the four teachers revealed that they had mostly positive perceptions, possessed adequate knowledge and skills in the use of differentiated instruction, and considered it an effective strategy for pedagogy in the 21st century.

Association Between Fungal Spore Exposure in Inner-City Schools and Asthma Morbidity

SN Baxi, WJ Sheehan, JE Sordillo. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol . 2019;122(6):610–615.e1 To evaluate the association of school-based fungal spore exposures on asthma symptom days in children with asthma. Children 4–13 years of age with persistent asthma attending an elementary school in the Northeast US from 2008–2013, where environmental sampling was obtained. Children had to have physician diagnosed asthma with symptoms in the prior 12 months, daily controller medication usage, or unscheduled medical visits for asthma in the past year. Children were recruited from participating schools …

The Mimetic and Representational Character of Gestures in Education. A Case Study in a Berlin Inner-City School

This contribution focuses on the important role of gestures in child-rearing and socialization. Reflecting upon gestures reveals not only their special medial nature but also their potential. Thus, rather than highlighting gestures alone, we want to elaborate a broader concept of gesturality. In classroom interactions, gestures become significant as part of an educational tableau. They need to be observed in educational situations to complement existing insights into the meaning of bodily behavior and to stimulate a revival of related educational traditions. Our ethnographic approach to studying gestures in education differs from other disciplines. As important as these studies are, many of them measure the role and significance of gestures solely on the basis of semiotic and semantic criteria, and thus fail to capture their pragmatic aspects. Our ethnographic research on gestures aims to investigate the corporeality, the mimetic and performative character of gestures, and furthermore to depict the involvement of gestural forms of expression in the constitution of social life. In the following sections, we will develop four dimensions which are of major importance in education and social science research: gestures as (1) movements of the body, (2) expression and representation, (3) means of child-rearing and education, (4) ways of creating meaning. These dimensions revolve around several anthropological characteristics which have received little attention in the research of gestures to date, and which also add dimensions and categories that are important in the educational sciences, thereby expanding the existing discourses.

TRAUMA-SENSITIVE PEDAGOGY & PRACTICE NEWSLETTER 1 (OF 2)

This publication includes the first of two newsletters published in this issue of Art/Research International. This second newsletter is followed by a commentary and references for both newsletters.
 Attentive to local and global mental health realities and the emergent need to provide intercultural mental health perspectives, resources, and methods that work across cultures in school contexts, I (the first author) conducted a participatory poetic inquiry, “Image, Body, and Voice: Supporting Girls’ Sense of Wellbeing,” with grade-6 girls in an inner-city school in Alberta. It sought to: (i) meet new Teacher Quality Standards (TQS) “to build positive and productive relationships with students [and] peers” (AB Education, 2018, p. 4); and (ii) be “aware of and facilitate responses to the emotional and mental health needs of students” (p. 6). I was guided by the following research question: In what ways might girls’ experiences with art-integrated activities and body-centred methods inform educators about pedagogical practice and mental health interventions?
 Findings indicated the transdisciplinary praxis that emerged—arts-based, contemplative and somatic methods—enhanced the girls’ sense of self and wellbeing. The youth reported that these activities had explicit value: sharing circles used for check-ins and - outs, ceremony—which welcomed witnessing—relational and body-centred practices, and one-on-one time with the PI. The life-size body maps as research creation illustrated that the participants learned to externalize sensations and emotions in a safe way, aiding them in the development of skills needed for emotional self-regulation. Body maps broadly defined are life-size body images, while body mapping is the process of creating body maps using collage, photography, painting, or other arts-integrated methods to visually symbolize aspects of people’s lives, their bodies, and their worlds.
 Funding from Research Impact Canada, VP Research & Innovation University of Alberta and the Kule Institute for Advanced Study aided to mobilize evidence-informed knowledge from this research through professional community engagement with pre- service teachers at a full-day workshop. Presenters at the workshop were members of a Community of Professional Practice (COPP) where the activities of educational research and trauma-sensitive practices were shared, including culturally aware methods for diverse populations. This newsletter reflects one of two events and two research creation artifacts provided as follow up to the attendees.

TRAUMA-SENSITIVE PEDAGOGY & PRACTICE NEWSLETTER 2 (OF 2)

This publication is the second of two newsletters published in this issue of Art/Research International. This newsletter is followed by a commentary and references for both newsletters. Funding from Research Impact Canada, VP Research & Innovation University of Alberta and the Kule Institute for Advanced Study mobilized evidence-informed knowledge from “Image, Body, and Voice: Supporting Girls’ Sense of Wellbeing,” a participatory poetic inquiry with grade-6 girls in an inner-city school in Alberta, through professional community engagement. At an afternoon workshop, held during spring break with in- service teachers, leaders, and parents/guardians, activities central to the research were shared for the goal of generating mutual benefit skills and knowledge. It offered experiential opportunities, including the creation of mini body maps, and a combination of strategies to support mental wellness, including culturally aware methods for diverse populations, intended for social inclusion and freedom from discrimination and violence. Newsletter 2, as research creation artifact, sought to support teachers, leaders, and families during the onset of COVID-19, when K-12 education moved to on-line delivery and health regulations required social distancing. The content shared beyond “Image, Body, & Voice” sought to support school staff and families through information about compassion fatigue, soul weariness, the power of play, the centrality of the body in healing, emotional regulation and traumatic events. This newsletter is one of two research documents provided as follow up to the attendees of both funded events.

Patchwork capital and postsecondary success: Latinx students from high school to college

ABSTRACT In scholarly conversations of college readiness, the academic performance of Latinx students largely hinges on questions of culture. College success necessitates fluency in dominant cultural capital and community cultural wealth. Inner-city high schools, however, inadequately endow Latinx students with dominant cultural capital and are often subtractive of community cultural wealth. Nonetheless, many Latinx college students are enjoying academic success. To understand how Latinx students from inner-city high schools are succeeding in college in spite of insufficient preparation, I introduce the concept of ‘patchwork capital’ grounded in interviews and observations of twelve Latinx students from high school to college. As opposed to middle- and upper-class students who seamlessly apply robust collections of college-ready capital to postsecondary transitions, low-income, Latinx students adopt a more piecemeal approach. Through scattered experiences in and out of school, Latinx students produce a patchwork of dominant and nondominant cultural resources, tenuously assembled and applied towards college success.

Estimating light-duty vehicles' contributions to ambient PM2.5 and PM10 at a near-highway urban elementary school via elemental characterization emphasizing rhodium, palladium, and platinum

The primary objective of this research is to accurately estimate light-duty vehicles' (LDVs') emissions of PM2.5 and PM10 over the course of a year within the property line of an inner-city school located adjacent to a heavily-trafficked interstate highway by measuring platinum group elements (PGEs – Rh, Pd, and Pt) along with 49 other major and trace elements. Amongst PGEs, ambient Pd concentrations were the highest, averaging 11 pg/m3 in PM10 and 4.0 pg/m3 in PM2.5 followed by Pt (3.5 pg/m3 in PM10 and 1.4 pg/m3 in PM2.5), and Rh (1.6 pg/m3 in PM10 and 0.52 pg/m3 in PM2.5). Simultaneous three-component variations in Rh, Pd, and Pt in both PM size classes at this surface site closely matched the composition of (i) a mixed random lot of recycled autocatalysts obtained from numerous LDVs and (ii) PM inside a proximal underwater tunnel open only to light-duty vehicles. Additionally, quantitative estimates of LDV contributions to ambient PM calculated by chemical mass balance modeling (CMB) were strongly correlated with PGE abundances. Therefore, PGEs predominantly originated from gasoline-driven motor vehicles validating them as unique LDV tracers. Further, CMB estimated that vehicles contributed 37% on average (12–67%) to PM10 and 49% on average (25–73%) to PM2.5. Evidence is also presented for a subset of other trace metals; i.e. Cu, As, Mo, Cd, and Sb to also be relatively strong LDV tracers. Results highlight the importance of measuring PGEs in addition to numerous other elements in PM to accurately apportion aerosols emanating from LDVs, which will better isolate public health and environmental impacts associated with the transportation sector.

“God is my doctor”: mindfulness meditation/prayer as a spiritual well-being coping strategy for Jamaican school principals to manage their work-related stress and anxiety

PurposeThis article explores Jamaican secondary school principals' use of mindfulness meditation as a spiritual well-being strategy to manage their work-related stress and anxiety.Design/methodology/approachThe author used qualitative semi-structured interviews to collect the data from 12 Jamaican secondary school principals working in schools supporting rural, urban and inner-city school communities. Thematic coding of the analyzed data was used to understand how principals deal with their work-related stress and anxiety.FindingsThe findings indicate that Jamaican school principals are experiencing work-related stress and anxiety as a result of work intensification, and use mindfulness meditation/prayer as a spiritual coping strategy. The data indicate that principals' primary source of support is their spiritual belief – faith in God and mindfulness meditation/prayer – when dealing with issues related to well-being.Originality/valueThis article explores the use of mindfulness meditation as a non-secular coping strategy, and focuses on an understudied area of educational administration research: Jamaican school principals' well-being. The findings can help inform future education and health policy around occupational health and well-being for professionals, and lay the foundation for greater studies on principal well-being in Jamaican and the Caribbean more generally.

Obesity may enhance the adverse effects of NO2 exposure in urban schools on asthma symptoms in children

Sparse data address the effects of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure in inner-city schools on obese students with asthma. We sought to evaluate relationships between classroom NO2 exposure and asthma symptoms and morbidity by body mass index (BMI) category. The School Inner-City Asthma Study enrolled students aged 4 to 13 years with asthma from 37 inner-city schools. Students had baseline determination of BMI percentile. Asthma symptoms, morbidity, pulmonary inflammation, and lung function were monitored throughout the subsequent academic year. Classroom NO2 data, linked to enrolled students, were collected twice per year. We determined the relationship between classroom NO2 levels and asthma outcomes by BMI stratification. A total of 271 predominantly black (35%) or Hispanic students (35%) were included in analyses. Fifty percent were normal weight (5-84th BMI percentile), 15% overweight (≥85-94th BMI percentile), and 35% obese (≥95th BMI percentile). For each 10-parts per billion increase in NO2, obese students had a significant increase in the odds of having an asthma symptom day (odds ratio [OR], 1.86; 95% CI, 1.15-3.02) and in days caregiver changed plans (OR, 4.24; 95% CI, 2.33-7.70), which was significantly different than normal weight students who exhibited no relationship between NO2 exposure and symptom days (OR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.57-1.42; pairwise interaction P= .03) and change in caregiver plans (OR, 1.37; 95% CI, 0.67-2.82; pairwise interaction P= .02). Relationships between NO2 levels and lung function and fractional exhaled nitric oxide did not differ by BMI category. If we applied a conservative Holm-Bonferroni correction for 16 comparisons (obese vs normal weight and overweight vs normal weight for 8 outcomes), these findings would not meet statistical significance (all P> .003). Obese BMI status appears to increase susceptibility to classroom NO2 exposure effects on asthma symptoms in inner-city children. Environmental interventions targeting indoor school NO2 levels may improve asthma health for obese children. Although our findings would not remain statistically significant after adjustment for multiple comparisons, the large effect sizes warrant future study of the interaction of obesity and pollution in pediatric asthma.

Gun Violence as an Obstacle to Educational Equality

This paper addresses the issue of school gun violence as both a result and a cause of ongoing educational inequality. First, gun violence and homicides have reached epidemic levels in recent years among minority teenagers in the United States, and the constant disruption, trauma, and fear that go along with such day to day violence significantly affect the educational and psychological development of urban youth, and thus their eventual educational and career achievements. Second, media attention and recent legislative initiatives to permit or require guns in schools (arming teachers, etc.) focus on the comparatively rare phenomenon of active shooter scenarios (school massacres or shooting rampages), which are predominantly a suburban phenomenon, while ignoring the causes and effects of routine, lower-fatality gun incidents in poorer urban schools. Measures designed to prevent, or thwart, suburban mass shootings may in fact have deleterious effects in inner-city schools that face daily issues with gangs, gun carrying, and outbreaks of interpersonal violence. This paper will suggest that comprehensive community solutions to reduce gun violence are inseparable from policies promoting educational equality, as decreased gun violence boosts educational achievement and helps the school environment, and at the same time, improvements in educational equality can help further reduce gun violence in the community - the two are intertwined. In addition, this paper offers some bold suggestions regarding, increased age restrictions for the purchase of guns and ammunition, training of school guidance counselors regarding firearm access by minors, and reduced presence of armed security and other school personnel within the school.

Multilingual communication under the radar: how multilingual children challenge the dominant monolingual discourse in a super-diverse, Early Years educational setting in England

ABSTRACTThe operant “one nation – one language” model in Western culture has resulted in linguistic hegemony being almost universally presented as an uncontentious reality. This article accepts Foucault’s challenge to deconstruct this officially sanctioned “truth” by looking at how the educational system in England legitimises the discourse that speaking English is normal, marginalising multilingual practices. Data is drawn from a year-long study of thirty “super-diverse” children in an inner-city school in the north of England. The research presents language portraits in which the children demonstrate they have internalised the rhetoric that English should be spoken in school. These are contrasted with ethnographic observations which provide co-constructed researcher-pupil cartoons representing social interactions in a range of contexts. The illustrations demonstrate how the children challenge the idealisation of English language in school by operating spatial agency in which they seek (and find) opportunities in peripheral and liminal spaces to speak their own language.

First Person: Memories of the Teacher Corps

In the 1970s, the American Teacher Corps gave young people willing to work in troubled schools two years of sink-or-swim training, a small stipend, a master’s’ degree, and a teaching certificate. Not sure what he wanted to do with his life, Dan Woll joined the program after his college graduation in 1970. Woll and his roommate stood out as two of the only White people in their inner-city neighborhood and school. Woll reflects on how it felt to be part of a school and community where he was a member of the racial group that helped perpetuate the inequalities that left the school in such poor condition.

Turning Policy into Practice: One School’s Experience of the International Student Program

ABSTRACT This paper presents a case-study exploration of how federal and state government policy and Education Acts are interpreted and enacted at school level through the implementation of the International Student Program in Victoria, Australia. Understanding policy and its enactment as multi-layered and often “messy” to frame through our analysis, we examine interview data, key statements from policy documents and media reports. This case-study of the challenges arising from the enactment of ISP policy in a particular inner-city Australian secondary school context, provides a unique view of the challenges government schools encounter from government, school, and student perspectives.

Rhodes Boyson: a Janus of education?

ABSTRACTThis article examines the career of the educationalist, Conservative politician and published writer on education and politics, Rhodes Boyson (1925–2012). As an educationalist, Boyson established Highbury Grove Boys’ Comprehensive School in Islington, North London: an inner-city school which was antithetical to the wave of progressivism in the 1960s and early 1970s. The article explores Boyson’s educational approach and vision in greater depth than has been the case in previous publications about him and attempts to place him beyond the limitations of a caricature and offer some redemption, seeing him as a paradox: he was welded to educational traditions but at the same time had a vision which can be seen as forward-thinking. This duality, and the sense of Rhodes Boyson as a paradox, makes the Janus metaphor apposite.

Teachers Using Role-play to Prevent Bullying

Ascertaining if non-drama specialist teachers would be able to use role-play to help reduce bullying in their classrooms was the key aim of a longitudinal two-year pilot study conducted in an inner-city school in Ireland. The study combined qualitative and quantitative elements, including ongoing teacher feedback (oral and written), student focus groups and teacher interviews and the Olweus Bully Victim Questionnaire. Role-play has been offered as a resource in other anti-bullying interventions, but its efficacy is not often evaluated as usage is optional and left to the discretion of teachers who can eschew role-play activities due to time constraints, curriculum overload and unfamiliarity with drama activities. At the end of the two-year intervention, students indicated that there was a 53% drop in victimisation. Most teachers reported that role-play was a very effective resource for opening the discussion and creating awareness about bullying while aiding its prevention. Students, who participated in focus groups, reported that they found their teachers more effective in dealing with bullying incidents. Thus, this study provides evidence that role-play can be a powerful resource for teachers to utilise in creating awareness about bullying and give teachers and students the skills the aid its prevention.

Classroom indoor PM2.5 sources and exposures in inner-city schools

Children spend over 6 h a day in schools and have higher asthma morbidity from school environmental exposures. The present study aims to determine indoor and outdoor possible sources affecting indoor PM2.5 in classrooms. Weeklong indoor PM2.5 samples were collected from 32 inner-city schools from a Northeastern U.S. community during three seasons (fall, winter and spring) during the years 2009 to 2013. Concurrently, daily outdoor PM2.5 samples were taken at a central monitoring site located at a median distance of 4974 m (range 1065–11,592 m) from the schools. Classroom indoor concentrations of PM2.5 (an average of 5.2 μg/m3) were lower than outdoors (an average of 6.5 μg/m3), and these averages were in the lower range compared to the findings in other schools' studies. The USEPA PMF model was applied to the PM2.5 components measured simultaneously from classroom indoor and outdoor to estimate the source apportionment. The major sources (contributions) identified across all seasons of indoor PM2.5 were secondary pollution (41%) and motor vehicles (17%), followed by Calcium (Ca)-rich particles (12%), biomass burning (15%), soil dust (6%), and marine aerosols (4%). Likewise, the major sources of outdoor PM2.5 across all seasons were secondary pollution (41%) and motor vehicles (26%), followed by biomass burning (17%), soil dust (7%), road dust (3%), and marine aerosols (1%). Secondary pollution was the greatest contributor to indoor and outdoor PM2.5 over all three seasons, with the highest contribution during spring with 53% to indoor PM2.5 and 45% to outdoor PM2.5. Lower contributions of this source during fall and winter are most likely attributed to less infiltration indoors. In contrast, the indoor contribution of motor vehicles source was highest in the fall (29%) and winter (25%), which was presumably categorized by a local source. From the relationship between indoor-to-outdoor sulfur ratios and each source contribution, we also estimated the local and regional influence on indoor PM2.5 concentration. Overall, the observed differences to indoor PM2.5 are related to seasonality, and the distinct characteristics and behavior of each classroom/school.

Empowering care in the inner-city: meeting standards with high expectations

ABSTRACT This paper provides a narrative account describing how a first-year teacher’s empowering care in her mathematics classes in an inner-city high school in Southern California contributed to better student learning and helped raise district-wide test scores. The purpose of the article, chronicled from a practitioner’s point of view, examines how teacher beliefs that “all students are capable of learning,” operationalised concretely in terms of empowering care, enabled students to achieve impressive academic performances as measured by the district standardised tests during the recent school year. Through applying the research methodologies of narrative inquiry and conversation analysis to interpret the data, this study focuses on how students from impoverished, urban neighbourhoods started to believe in themselves. As a result, these students demonstrated that they could improve their learning in Algebra I and consistently perform better on district tests, outperforming other classes at their school and other schools within the district.

Using The Lexia Reading Program To Increase NWEA MAP Reading Scores In Grades 1 to 3

This quantitative study evaluated the efficiency of the Lexia Reading Program in 132 early elementary school students in an inner-city school in Hartford, Connecticut. Students who met the criteria were assigned to the experimental Lexia group, and other students were randomly assigned to a comparison group. The Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress (NWEA MAP) was used to provide pre and post measures of literacy skills. Results indicated that students who used Lexia outperformed students in the control group (p <.01): their MAP scores increased from 157 to 174, a 17-point increase, while the control group’s scores increased from 166 to 171, a 5-point increase. The Lexia reading program appears to be an effective tool to improve the literacy skills of struggling first- to third-grade readers. Keywords: Lexia reading, Lexia group, NWEA MAP, Elementary students, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2703-5767