Presents current research and theoretical perspectives on the challenges facing educators in U.S. urban schools.

In recent decades a growing number of middle-class parents have considered sending their children to—and often end up becoming active in—urban public schools. Their presence can bring long-needed material resources to such schools, but, as Linn Posey-Maddox shows in this study, it can also introduce new class and race tensions, and even exacerbate inequalities. Sensitively navigating the pros and cons of middle-class transformation, When Middle-Class Parents Choose Urban Schools asks whether it is possible for our urban public schools to have both financial security and equitable diversity. Drawing on in-depth research at an urban elementary school, Posey-Maddox examines parents’ efforts to support the school through their outreach, marketing, and volunteerism. She shows that when middle-class parents engage in urban school communities, they can bring a host of positive benefits, including new educational opportunities and greater diversity. But their involvement can also unintentionally marginalize less-affluent parents and diminish low-income students’ access to the improving schools. In response, Posey-Maddox argues that school reform efforts, which usually equate improvement with rising test scores and increased enrollment, need to have more equity-focused policies in place to ensure that low-income families also benefit from—and participate in—school change.

This timely book exposes the complexities and realities facing urbanness and urban schools that are inadequately funded and denigrated, along with students who continue to be misidentified, misassessed, miscategorized, misplaced, and misinstructed by illprepared and unprepared educators and service providers. The text very successfully demonstrates the comprehensive nature and connectedness of problems and prospects in urban education. This book will be an added resource to researchers, scholars, educators, and service providers. It should be an excellent required text for graduate and undergraduate courses in all branches of education. Addition-ally, the book will be of interest to education administrators at all levels, public school teachers, policy makers, and change agents. The thirteen chapters discuss and explore the following primary topics:• Urban education and the quest for democracy, equity, and excellence• Educating urban learners with and without special needs• Personnel preparation and urban schools• Teaching and learning in urban schools• Educational leadership in urban schools• Insights into educational psychology and what urban practitioners must know• Managing violence in urban schools• Financing urban schools• Reducing the power of “whiteness” in urban schools• Promises and challenges of building and the future perspectives of urban education.

This comprehensive volume provides a 3-part conceptual model in which the achievement of equity for all - regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity - is is central to urban education.

Many factors complicate the education of urban students. Among them have been issues related to population density; racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity; poverty; racism (individual and institutional); and funding levels. Although urban educators have been addressing these issues for decades, placing them under the umbrella of "urban education" and treating them as a specific area of practice and inquiry is relatively recent. Despite the wide adoption of the term a consensus about its meaning exists at only the broadest of levels. In short, urban education remains an ill-defined concept. This comprehensive volume addresses this definitional challenge and provides a 3-part conceptual model in which the achievement of equity for all -- regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity – is an ideal that is central to urban education. The model also posits that effective urban education requires attention to the three central issues that confronts all education systems (a) accountability of individuals and the institutions in which they work, (b) leadership, which occurs in multiple ways and at multiple levels, and (c) learning, which is the raison d'être of education. Just as a three-legged stool would fall if any one leg were weak or missing, each of these areas is essential to effective urban education and affects the others.

Hip hop music in the classroom: a motivational tool for African American student success in schools? / Felicia M. Gangloff-Bailey and Kimberly Edelin Freeman -- I code therefore I am: the sociotechnical narrative of a coding curriculum in Bangalore / Eric Byker -- Students' attitudes, teaching styles and methodologies and the impact they have on students' performance in CSEC geography / Charlene P. Stoddart -- Examining culturally relevant pedagogy through intentional internship placements within partnership and PDS schools / Christie Martin and Michele Myers -- Using cross-national education study tours to enhance global competent leadership: reframing study tours of urban schools / Veronica Holly, Phillip A. Smith, Sir Alasdair MacDonald, and Andrew Millin -- Alternative teacher certification: a case study on perceptions of preparedness to teach diverse populations / YaSheka Adams and Petra A. Robinson -- White teacher racism: its effects on African Caribbean male students in English secondary schools / Dennis G. Francis -- Urban islands: how social capital saves lives / Derrick Robinson -- Experience is a good teacher: using narratives as an employment intervention / Porscha Jackson -- Building and measuring youth career readiness in disadvantaged communities / Tracey Rizzuto, Anne Sang, and Carly Penn -- Critical solutions and charting a way forward / Paula Barbel -- Urban youth/international scholars: critical solutions in support of the UN sustainable development goals / Ayana Allen-Handy, Shawnna Thomas-El, Tahmidul Bhuiyan, Xavier Carroll, Eva Karlen, Isabel Medlock, and Imani Weeks.