Drawing on a year-long qualitative study, this article examines how one refugee student from the Vietnamese Central Highlands negotiated social and cultural constructions of patriotism and citizenship in a Junior Reserves Officer Training Corps (JROTC) class at an urban high school. Data are analyzed using Butler's (1990) the theory of…

Within the state selected for this study, teacher preparation programs and state certification criterion require that educators examine the relationship between school and society within social foundations of education (SFE) coursework. Using observations and interviews, this study examines to what extent four experienced, urban classroom teachers…

This article theorizes and charts the implementation of a learning activity designed from the hip-hop aesthetic of sampling. The purpose of this learning activity was to enable recent urban school graduates to reflect upon their previous schooling experiences as a platform for future learning in higher education. This article illustrates what…

Through listening to the voices of students, educators and community members can begin to reconstruct the culture of urban schools that are often full of stories about student deficits, genetic explanations about achievement, and cultural mismatch theories that may be traced to historical and sociological ideologies. The purpose of this heuristic…

In 1933, Ethel Thompson Overby became the first African American female principal in Richmond, Virginia. Her motto was "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness" (Overby 1975, 1). Before becoming principal, Overby had been a teacher in the southern urban "de jure" segregated schools of the city. How did the racially segregated…

This article, based on archival research and oral interviews, examines the personal and professional impact of desegregation on African American teachers in an urban southern setting by focusing on the life stories of two public school teachers, Kathleen Crosby and Bertha Maxwell-Roddey. Both taught in segregated schools, helped to desegregate…

Framed by theoretical perspectives on Black Feminist Thought, the life course, and the Generation X/Hip-Hop generation, I present findings from a subset of 10 Black women educators in Birmingham, Alabama who participated in a larger life story project. The participants, who came of age professionally across the pre- and post-civil rights movement…

The objective of this article is to critically examine a school reform effort that has taken hold in New York City over the past seven years. A largely privately funded venture, the New Century Schools Initiative (NCSI), opened hundreds of new small high schools in poor urban communities in New York City starting in 2002. The theory behind opening…

Our article is based on a study of our integration of social foundations coursework with filmmaking and participatory action research, bringing teacher candidates and middle and high school students together. The project was carried out in partnership between an urban university and two nearby public schools within a Midwestern city known for high…

This article examines the norms of school failure and illuminates ways in which low-income students of color respond to their needs for educational advancement when conditions to support their college-going identities are severely limited in the school context. This study's primary finding confirms the value of a grassroots approach to improving…

When examining the experiences of adolescent girls, a study into the presumptions teachers have regarding female adolescent sexuality is a very important aspect to explore. This article presents the findings from a study we conducted with eleven middle- and high school teachers in a southeastern state from both rural and urban districts. In-depth…

This article discusses what David Berliner (2005) has called the perverse "spectacle of fear" (208) surrounding issues of teacher quality and accountability in contemporary school reform. Drawing principally on the critical semiotics of Roland Barthes' essay, "The World of Wrestling" (1957), it examines the way that this spectacle works to…

In this article, I portray undergraduate education students at an urban, inclusive university participating in the process of defining their emerging philosophies of education. Excerpts from student writing demonstrate that, in a course organized around key essential questions, double-entry journals, and students' consideration of their…

The 15th Anniversary of the Los Angeles riots serves as an impetus to continue efforts in addressing how institutionalized theories, norms, and practices in schools and society lead to social, political, economic, and educational inequalities. The challenges of school inequalities continue to be chronic and remain unresolved through traditional…

This article provides a brief history of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), including an analysis of the demographic shifts and the tensions between the African American and Korean American communities at the time of the Los Angeles riots in 1992. The article includes my own experiences teaching high school English during the…