Reconsidering the Urban in Urban Education: Interdisciplinary Conversations

Abstract

The field of education has become comfortable in its use of the construct urban to describe particular schools in particular metropolitan places. This article argues that the construct has come to signify not just place but also to denote particular meanings of 'urban' populations. It analyzes how literary and socialscientific practices converged to anchor this construct paradigmatically in the registers of educational practitioners and researchers. Drawing from cultural geography, the article then demonstrates why the framework of the urban, and its other implicit pole the suburban, is no longer satisfactory for conceptualizing empirical questions about metropolitan schools. Lastly, the author identifies and discusses exemplars within the field of educational research that help us to remap our theoretical and empirical work.

(Re)Defining Urban Education: A Conceptual Review and Empirical Exploration of the Definition of Urban Education

“…There is an “identity crisis in urban education” that holds significant implications for the growth of a coherent and nuanced body of knowledge on urban education in the broader educational literature (Milner & Lomotey, 2014). Among educational researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, there is no universal definition of “urban education” (Buendía, 2011; Milner, 2012a; Milner et al, 2015; Noguera, 2003; Schaffer et al, 2018). Shifting demographics of neighborhoods, increasing diversity of students, as well as widespread disparities across and within districts and schools nationwide have further muddled the categorization of urban versus nonurban districts (Jacobs, 2015; Noguera, 2017).…”

“…Shifting demographics of neighborhoods, increasing diversity of students, as well as widespread disparities across and within districts and schools nationwide have further muddled the categorization of urban versus nonurban districts (Jacobs, 2015; Noguera, 2017). Few studies focus explicitly on how urban education is defined, and these studies have largely been limited to descriptive categories (Buendía, 2011; Irby, 2015; Milner, 2012a; Noguera, 1996; Schaffer et al, 2018).…”

A Social Constructivist Approach to Preparing School Counselors to Work Effectively in Urban Schools

“…Thus, we recommend utilizing a social construction framework as school counselor educators teach, train, and supervise postmodern twenty-first century SCITs. That is, rather than assuming that professionals have access to "objective truth" and that clients or students improve only when they concede to this knowledge, we assume that we learn and create meaning by being in genuine relationship with those clients or students (Buendía 2011). School counselor educators can position themselves as meaning-making pedagogues, facilitators, and narrators for SCITs, adopting a social constructionist worldview where conversations (verbal) and actions (nonverbal) are co-created.…”

Sustainability of an Urban Teacher Education Program

“…The program immersed students-labeled by the program as teacher residents-in the teaching profession by engaging them in an urban school and having them work closely with their assigned mentor teacher. In UTEP, urban schools were defined as those schools that were situated in (a) compactly populated, diverse, primarily minority-majority neighborhoods; (b) communities with limited access to financial resources, jobs, health care, transportation, physical safety and modernized facilities; and (c) familial cultures within communities that were historically marginalized by the dominant cultures within the United States (Anyon, 1997;Buendia, 2010;Kozleski & Smith, 2009). These urban schools exposed teacher residents to a diverse set of cultural and socioeconomic settings.…”