Urban School Teachers Research Articles

A Mixed-Method Study of Teachers' Attitudes About Teaching in Urban and Low-Income Schools

This multimethod study investigates the attitudes teachers in urban and low-income schools have about teaching early elementary students. The authors examine the contextual characteristics of elementary schools where such teachers are willing to take responsibility for children's learning. The quantitative analyses focus on a subsample of students and teachers in low-income schools from The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten cohort. The qualitative data are drawn from a 2-year intensive study of eight kindergarten teachers and four first-grade teachers in urban public schools, with a focus on interviews with a subset of “highly responsible” teachers. The authors discuss policy implications, especially related to how to improve teachers' attitudes toward children from low-income environments.

Alternatively Certified Teachers in Urban Small Schools: Where Policy Reform Meets the Road

In this study we explore the experiences of new teachers in urban schools at the intersection of three major policy agendas—alternative certification, new teacher retention, and the small schools movement. We examine alternatively certified teachers’ perceptions of the rewards and challenges of teaching in small schools, the support neophyte teachers seek and receive in these unique educational settings, and the reality of small school implementation in a modern urban environment. The findings have implications for policy-makers, urban school reformers, teacher educators and professional developers, administrators and teachers working to create and implement effective policy for twenty-first century urban schools.

AN URBAN SCHOOLS–UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIP THAT PREPARES AND RETAINS QUALITY TEACHERS FOR “HIGH NEED” SCHOOLS

This article describes a full-time teaching internship program, where, in lieu of student teaching, interns serve as classroom teachers in urban area schools. Through a partnership between a university and participating school districts, all interns received intensive mentoring and induction during their first year. Among the program results, were a 100% retention rate of interns in the teaching profession, significant growth in teaching interns' confidence, readiness, and self-efficacy regarding their abilities to teach successfully. In addition, school administrators consistently rated interns as proficient teachers using a state-approved evaluation instrument. Implications for continuing the internship program are presented.

A Social History of Media, Technology and Schooling

AbstractThis article explores the literature in the intersecting fields of media, technology and schooling in the United States across the past two centuries. It organizes the research from a social-historical perspective through a fic-tionalized interview with an archetypal third-generation urban public school teacher. This topography illustrates the problems and possibilities that emerge from the chronic push for technology in schools. Of particular men-tion are the privileging of orality and literacy through the common school reader, the mechanization of school-ing through teaching machines and television, and the transformative yet still untapped potential of computers and the internet.Keywords: Media Education, Media History, Education History, Technology, Media Literacy To more fully understand and appreciate the complexities and challenges of media literacy educa-tion in the digital age, this essay reflects on the his-torical intersection of media, technology, and school-ing in the United States. Although its history is well established as rife with tensions and contradictions,

Teaching Media Literacy in Less Than an Hour

This article explores the literature in the intersecting fields of media, technology and schooling in the United States across the past two centuries. It organizes the research from a social-historical perspective through a fictionalized interview with an archetypal third-generation urban public school teacher. This topography illustrates the problems and possibilities that emerge from the chronic push for technology in schools. Of particular mention are the privileging of orality and literacy through the common school reader, the mechanization of schooling through teaching machines and television, and the transformative yet still untapped potential of computers and the internet.

Tough transitions? Mediating beginning urban teachers’ practices through coteaching

The coteaching model for teacher preparation has emerged in recent years as an alternative to the traditional student teaching or practicum experience. Several studies have investigated the process of coteaching and its impact on participants during the actual experience; however, few depict participants’ experiences once they obtain positions and begin to teach independently. This collective case study explored two urban high school teachers’ (Jen and Ian) practices during the induction period after taking part in the coteaching model for student teaching. Using a sociocultural analytic framework, we found that the participants’ agency as beginning teachers was not constrained by their coteaching experiences. Rather, they were able to continue to draw on some of the successful practices they had in coteaching, such as shared reflection, shared responsibility, cogenerative dialogues, and building relationships with students. In addition to describing the coherence and contradictions between Ian’s and Jen’s practices during coteaching and in their beginning years of inservice teaching, we also discuss the ways that they became collaborators in our ethnographic research.

Teacher subcultures of democratic practice amidst the oppression of educational reform

Teachers’ voices explore and document what is at stake when they are excluded from power-brokering conversations that mandate how teachers practice and model democracy in classrooms. Case study vignettes, interviews, classroom observations, and reflections of teachers in urban and suburban schools reveal four significant teacher subcultures of democratic practice: a subculture of compliance, a subculture of noncompliance, a subculture of subversion, and a subculture of democratic inquiry and practice. Analyses reveal that each subculture poses significant stakes for teachers, preservice teachers, the teaching profession, pupils, and society writ large.

The Emotional Ambivalence of Socially Just Teaching: A Case Study of a Novice Urban Schoolteacher

The authors contend that studying emotional perspectives can facilitate understanding of the complexities of socially just teaching. They explore the intersection between emotions and socially just teaching via a case study of a White novice teacher at one urban school as she struggles to formulate socially just teaching practices. Drawing from feminist and critical theory, the authors propose the term critical emotional praxis to denote critical praxis informed by emotional resistance to unjust pedagogical systems and practices. The authors’ analysis may assist in the development of socially just teachers: First, emotions and their expression play an important, ongoing role in socially just teaching, and second, emotional negotiation related to socially just teaching can provide deeper understanding of possible change, perhaps even in counterresponse to wider social, political contexts of schools.

A Programmatic View of Portfolios for Urban Teacher Preparation

This exploratory study represents an analysis of 15 exit portfolios of students enrolled in a program to prepare teachers for urban schools. Portfolios were analyzed holistically across entries to determine the degree to which students integrated multiple concepts related to teaching in urban schools, including: asset/deficit perspectives, connections with families, social justice, high expectations for student learning, and contextualized teaching and learning. The portfolios fell into three groups along a continuum from limited practice to inconsistent practice to principled practice. The data are interpreted in relationship to faculty development and scaffolding preservice students as aspiring teachers for urban schools.

Disrupting deficit notions of difference: Counter-narratives of teachers and community in urban education

The author reports on research conducted of teachers and their instruction in a US urban public school, with narrative and counter-narrative employed as analytic tools. Central questions guiding the study included: How do teachers’ counter-narratives and experiences influence them in their urban school classrooms? How do teachers’ multiple and varied identities, especially their racial and cultural backgrounds, emerge in their counter-narratives and in their conceptions of and representations of their teaching? And how do teachers’ stories “counter” ways of knowing urban education in the US and influence their interactions with their students and the learning opportunities available in their classrooms? The evidence in the study suggests that although teachers in urban schools may employ pedagogical and curricular tools that differ from many mainstream classrooms, different does not necessarily mean deficit or deficient. The study does not present a romanticized version of the school or those in it; the teachers and students in the study experience adversity and difficulty as is the case with teachers and students in other contexts. However, implications are drawn from the teachers’ successful practices in urban schools to counter, disrupt, and interrupt pervasive discourses that only focus on the negative characteristics of teachers and students in urban schools.

Local amenities, unobserved quality, and market clearing: Adjusting teacher compensation to provide equal education opportunities

Local school districts differ in their ability to pay for teacher quality, and in the amenities they offer as places to live and work. Market clearing with heterogeneous quality yields geographically varying teacher salary levels that confound scarcity with unobserved differences in quality. The paper discusses identification and estimation of a model of quality-adjusted teacher salaries in local markets with unobserved market-clearing prices. Exogenous variables in the model include community and district characteristics, job characteristics and working conditions, and individual characteristics. We apply the model to estimate the relative cost of providing comparably qualified teachers for urban and rural public schools in the state of Alaska, which has high geographic variation in amenities and local financial resources. The quality-adjusted geographic salary differentials implied by the results suggest much larger compensation differentials for isolated rural schools than most of these school districts can afford under current levels of state support.

Parent Empowerment and Teacher Professionalism

School decentralization, which has reshaped power relations in the educational system, has empowered teachers and parents. Taking Abbott's approach to professions, the authors examine teachers' perceptions of the implications of parents' empowerment for teacher—parent relations. In-depth interviews with homeroom teachers in affluent urban elementary schools revealed that teachers favored parents' involvement but also felt vulnerable to the increasing influence of parents, who scrutinized their work and encroached on their professional domain. To counter this, teachers employed political means: open communication and transparency to boost parents' confidence and trust in their teaching skills or diplomacy to avoid conflicts. This study suggests that, at times of school reform, teachers should develop political tasks to preserve their control over their profession.

The Full Circling Process: Leaping Into the Ethics of History Using Critical Visual Literacy and Arts‐Based Activism

In a time when adolescents are continually inundated by provocative multimedia campaigns that coax them to buy more, think less, and do so in a passive environment that provides little to no opportunities for them to reflect on who they are in the world, the author of this article offers one way to engage adolescents and their teachers with a process she calls full circling. Working with a variety of urban adolescents, university interns, and middle school teachers in urban settings, the author describes her four‐part process of connecting critical visual media—historically authentic photographs, paintings, drawings, and other visual documents—with more traditional fiction and non‐fiction texts, as she incorporates inquiry, reading, writing, educational drama, and “arts‐based activism.” The author explores a variety of ways to change current classroom paradigms as she reframes and repositions student learning using the tenets of her process.

Bringing the Real World of Science to Children: A Partnership of the American Museum of Natural History and the City University of New York

Every child has a right to an education. In the United States, the issue is not necessarily about access to a school but access to a quality education. With strict compulsory education laws, more than 50 million students enrolled in primary and secondary schools, and billions of dollars spent annually on public and private education, American children surely have access to buildings and classrooms. However, because of a complex and competitive system of shared policymaking among national, state, and local governments, not all schools are created equal nor are equal education opportunities available for the poor, minorities, and underprivileged. One manifestation of this inequity is the lack of qualified teachers in many urban and rural schools to teach certain subjects such as science, mathematics, and technology. The purpose of this article is to describe a partnership model between two major institutions (The American Museum of Natural History and The City University of New York) and the program designed to improve the way teachers are trained and children are taught and introduced to the world of science. These two institutions have partnered on various projects over the years to expand educational opportunity especially in the teaching of science. One of the more successful projects is Seminars on Science (SoS), an online teacher education and professional development program, that connects teachers across the United States and around the world to cutting-edge research and provides them with powerful classroom resources. This article provides the institutional perspectives, the challenges and the strategies that fostered this partnership.

Addressing urban high-poverty school teacher attrition by addressing urban high-poverty school teacher retention: why effective teachers persevere

Recruiting and retaining quality teachers specific for high-poverty schools in urban areas is a national concern, especially in light of the “No Child Left Behind” federal legislation. The educational realities, detrimental effects of poverty, and human despair that often depress low-income communities can prove to be quite overpowering for many teachers new to the profession and significantly contribute to high levels of teacher absenteeism, attrition rates, and teacher shortages. Examining this issue through a new lens, that being through the eyes of effective urban high-poverty school educators, has the potential to spark spirited conversations and debates among policy makers and educators alike so that significant polices and efforts can be developed and implemented. Therefore, the intent of this study was to develop a profile of high-quality educators who remain in urban high-poverty schools within a large metropolitan school district, and identify the indicators that influence them to remain. The results indicated that teachers who are African American, older, and more experienced define the profile of teachers most likely to remain beyond the first three years in this demanding setting. Additionally, these teachers reported that they remain because they believe they are well suited for teaching in high-poverty schools. Unless more attention is given to teacher retention, and why some educators are successful and persevere in even the most hard-to-staff schools, teacher attrition will continue to be a national concern. Key words: Urban teaching, teacher retention, teacher recruitment.

Urban elementary school teachers' knowledge and practices in teaching science to English language learners

AbstractThis study examined urban elementary teachers' knowledge and practices in teaching science while supporting English language development of English language learning (ELL) students. As part of a larger 5‐year research project in the United States, the study involved 38 third‐grade teachers who participated in the first‐year implementation of a professional development intervention that consisted of curriculum units and teacher workshops. The study examined four areas—teacher knowledge of science content, teaching science for understanding, teaching science for inquiry, and teacher support for English language development—through a questionnaire, classroom observations, and postobservation interviews. Results indicate that teachers' knowledge and practices were generally within the bounds supported by the intervention; however, such knowledge and practices fell short of the goal of reform‐oriented practices. The results provide insights for our ongoing intervention and other similar efforts and contribute to the emerging knowledge base on science and English language and literacy with ELL students. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 92:733–758, 2008

It's Not Just about Teaching Kids to Read: Helping Preservice Teachers Acquire a Mindset for Teaching Children in Urban Communities

This study looks at preservice teachers' attitudes toward children and teaching in an urban high-poverty community in relation to their involvement in two different literacy education experiences: one literacy course sequence addressed issues of cultural diversity with respect to this community, and the other did not explicitly address these issues. The study specifically examines preservice teachers' (a) attitudes toward children's literacy potential, (b) confidence in teaching children to read, and (c) interest in teaching in urban schools. The diversity-oriented literacy experience, combined with highly satisfying field placements, positively affected preservice teacher's confidence and interest in teaching children in this community. Further, these preservice teachers tended to recognize children's literacy potential, while those who took the more typical literacy courses tended to doubt these children's literacy abilities. They also exited the diversity-oriented literacy courses with an enriched sense of children's culture and home language, although their awareness of literacy as culturally situated practice remained superficial. Analysis of preservice teachers' cultural autobiographies provided evidence that they acquired many new understandings about race, class, culture, literacy, children, and teaching in the first literacy course. Based on these findings, recommendations are made for reforming preservice teacher curricula and forming stronger alliances with schools in high-poverty communities. What happens in classrooms is first and foremost about the personal and collective connections that exist among the individuals who inhabit those spaces. Consequently, teachers' beliefs and values, how these are communicated to students through teaching practices and behaviors and their impact on the lives of students—these are the factors that make teaching so consequential in the lives of many people (Nieto, 1999, p. 130).

Gangstas, Wankstas, and Ridas: defining, developing, and supporting effective teachers in urban schools

Drawing from three years of research in the classrooms of four highly effective elementary and secondary teachers in South Los Angeles, this article considers theories of teaching in urban contexts by examining effective practices in urban classrooms. It outlines an original framework of five indicators of effective teaching in urban schools and uses examples from practice to illustrate those indicators and their relationship to increased achievement. Finally, it discusses possibilities for better preparation and development of teachers in these areas of their practice.

Transformative learning through open listening: a professional development experience with urban high school teachers

This article relates how an English teacher in an urban high school described his efforts to listen and to perceive a seemingly disaffected student in his efforts to support her learning. He observed her responding to his efforts in positive and unexpected ways that involved her increased involvement in learning in his class. This teacher described how this student had presented many challenges to his teaching and how difficult attending to her overt anger and sullenness in his class was for him. However, by doing so, he said that his perceptions and understandings of her and subsequently, another student, shifted profoundly in ways that he believed helped him help these two students learn more meaningfully in his classes. This example of open listening on the part of a teacher toward his two students opened up new possibilities for learning for all three and may indicate a cycle of transformative listening which will be defined and discussed in this article. Stuart’s experiences in a professional development seminar, facilitated by the author, where teachers’ interpretive and evaluative ideas were listened to openly by colleagues and the facilitator may have influenced Stuart in his responses to his students. His involvement in this study group may have contributed to his learning to see his students in new, unique, and fuller ways, which he said he thought helped him help these students learn better in his classes.

Roles and Responsibilities of Adapted Physical Education Teachers in an Urban School District

The purpose of this study is to examine the roles and responsibilities of itinerant adapted physical education (APE) teachers at urban public schools. A second purpose is to determine how they execute their roles and responsibilities. Participants include six women with experience as itinerant APE teachers from the same urban school district. The research method is exploratory multiple-case study. Data are collected from focused interviews and on-site observations. Constant comparative procedures are used for within-case and cross-case analyses. Several themes emerge from the data. These themes are (a) teaching as obligatory, (b) self-reliant, and (c) teaching effectiveness relative and contextually situated. Gaining a better understanding of the experiences of practicing APE teachers in urban public schools who teach a diversity of students is important to the preparation of future teachers.