Driven by social and environmental criticism of the neoliberalization of agro-food systems, urban agriculture today enjoys renewed interest throughout the United States as a primary space to engage the politics of food. Using Brooklyn, New York as a case study, I employ mixed qualitative methods to investigate the contradictions that arise in…

A discourse placing schools in the service of the economy has become ubiquitous in the United States (US), and current educational policies, including No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and movements, such as the Common Core Learning Standards, have been positioned as necessary in an account of global competitiveness. In this hegemonic script,…

Public education funding relies on revenues from a variety of sources, from local taxpayers to federal programs targeting students with specific needs. The vast sum of funding collected--in excess of $600 billion annually--often masks which entities fund the education of our nation's youth. Questions of funding adequacy and equity across school…

Even before the Great Recession began, an alarming number of young adults in New York City between the ages of 18 and 24 were neither in school nor working. The employment challenges for these New Yorkers have only magnified in recent years. There are now an estimated 172,000 of these "disconnected youth" in the five boroughs. Though the…

Drawn from more than two years of ethnographic data collection, this dissertation study explores the literacy practices enacted in a youth media organization (the Youth Media Group) that is a branch of a public access television station (Manhattan Media) in New York City. Rooted in New Literacy Studies, a branch of scholarship which explores…

Along with the increase and demographic shift of contemporary immigrant populations, there has been a reemergence of research and debate on immigrant adaptation and assimilation theories. Under what contexts newly arriving immigrants actually adopt or resist assimilation as a means of achieving social mobility is one of the more important…

Throughout the first 157 years of The Children's Aid Society, the economy has cycled through highs and lows, some more severe than the recession individuals are still experiencing. And through them all, Children's Aid has remained strong. The society has always developed new and effective strategies to serve New York City's most vulnerable…

Few people realize the impact that high school dropouts have on a community's economic, social, and civic health. Business owners and residents--in particular, those without school-aged children--may not be aware that they have much at stake in the success of their local high schools. Indeed, everyone--from car dealers and realtors to bank…

This dissertation examines the formation, reformation, and standardization of land-grant colleges in the Northeastern United States during the last four decades of the nineteenth century. It is a history that explores the turbulent origins of land-grant colleges in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont,…

This report describes major education initiatives in support of economic development in New York State. The report sketches the major changes taking place in New York State's economy and reviews the role of educational institutions in upgrading standards, retraining the state's labor force, and providing information and research services. It also…

Research examining the impact of arts education on workforce preparation has confirmed that programs incorporating the arts can be educational, developmentally rich, and cost-effective ways of providing students with the skills needed for productive participation in today's economy. Arts education has been shown to help students develop basic,…

A study of the status of vocational training for limited-English-proficient (LEP) adults in New York State looks at the overall demographic situation of LEP residents in the state, state policy and action in serving LEP adults, and the specific situations in two regions. An introductory section reviews social, economic, and employment data…

The rising needs of school teachers and other school-related personnel in acquainting the youth of their region with labor market conditions and operations and in assisting them in planning their work careers were considered in the design of this analysis. The purpose of this report is to provide an economic analysis of the labor market conditions…

This panel presentation reacts to "America's Choice" (a publication of the National Center on Education and the Economy), which addresses the preparedness of students to enter the work force. Recognizing the need of continual evaluation of education programs, the paper states that generalizing problems of other areas to rural schools is…

Effective strategies to raise the employment and income levels of blacks in New York State must be comprehensive, balanced, and informed. Past efforts have failed because they have been narrow, short-run, imbalanced, or based on poor or incomplete information. The State's black population is most heavily concentrated in New York City, where the…