Between The World And The Urban Classroom

Borrowing from the ideas of John Dewey, schools and classrooms are a reflection of the world; therefore, in order to make sense of the urban classroom, we need to make sense of the world. In this book, the editors have compiled a collection of nine critical essays, or chapters, each examining a particular contemporary national and/or international event. The essays each undertake an explicit approach to naming oppression and addressing it in the context of urban schooling. Each essay has a two-fold purpose. The first purpose is to help readers see the world unveiled, through a more critical lens, and to problematize long held beliefs about urban classrooms, with regard to race, gender, social class, equity, and access. Second, as each author draws parallels between an event and urban classrooms, a better understanding of the microstructures that exist in urban classrooms emerges. “At a time of serious political, economic, and social uncertainty, we need a book like this, one that showcases how the world can be seen as a critical site of curriculum and pedagogy. A powerful intersectional analysis of the world, word, and urban sociopolitical context, authors in this book push the boundaries of what educators know and do in urban schools and classrooms. Grounded in frameworks of critical race theory and culturally relevant pedagogy, authors center essential societal moments that must be viewed as the real curriculum. These moments can equip students with tools to examine ‘the what of the world’ as well as how to examine, critique, challenge, and disrupt individual, systemic, and structural realities and practices that perpetuate and maintain a racist, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic status quo. This is an important, forward-thinking, innovative book – a welcome addition to the field of urban education.” – H. Richard Milner IV, Helen Faison Chair of Urban Education, University of Pittsburgh

In this politically and democratically urgent collection, George Yancy and contributors argue that more than ever, we are in need of classrooms that function "dangerously"—that is, classrooms where people are not afraid to engage in critical discussions that call into question difficult political times. Collectively they demonstrate the ways activist authors and scholars must be prepared to engage in risk and vulnerability as a defense of our democratic right to practice forms of pedagogical transgression. Ideal for scholars and students of critical pedagogy, philosophy of education, and political theory, this collection delineates the necessity of critical consciousness through education, and provides ways of speaking back against authoritarian control of imaginative and critical capacities.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

This edited volume brings together a state-of-the-art collection of leading and emergent research on the burgeoning topic of science identities. It sets out how science identity can be productively used as a lens in understanding patterns and inequalities in science participation across different educational and international contexts. Its chapters reveal how intersections of social identities and inequalities shape participation and engagement in science. Particular attention is given to explicating issues of theory and method, identifying the potential and limitations of approaches and lacunae in existing knowledge. The book showcases research from a range of disciplinary areas, employing diverse methodological and conceptual approaches to investigate science identities across different fields and settings. The collection offers a rich and comprehensive understanding of how science identity can be used conceptually, methodologically and analytically to understand how learners and teachers relate to, and make sense of, science. It’s a valuable resource for students, researchers and academics in the field of science education and anyone who is interested in identity and education.

Although nearly forgotten today, this educational reform movement represents an important component of early civil rights activism that emerged alongside the domestic and global tensions of wartime. Drawing on hundreds of first-hand accounts written by teachers nationwide, the author traces the influence of this anthropological activism on the way that teachers understood, spoke, and taught about race. She explains how and why teachers readily understood certain theoretical concepts, such as the division of race into three main categories, while they struggled to make sense of more complex models of cultural diversity and structural inequality. As they translated theories into practice, teachers crafted an educational discourse on race that differed significantly from the definition of race produced by scientists at mid-century. Schoolteachers and their approach to race were put into the spotlight with the Brown v.

A New York Times Best Seller "Essential reading for all adults who work with black and brown young people...Filled with exceptional intellectual sophistication and necessary wisdom for the future of education."—Imani Perry, National Book Award Winner author of South To America An award-winning educator offers a much-needed antidote to traditional top-down pedagogy and promises to radically reframe the landscape of urban education for the better Drawing on his own experience of feeling undervalued and invisible in classrooms as a young man of color, Dr. Christopher Emdin has merged his experiences with more than a decade of teaching and researching in urban America. He takes to task the perception of urban youth of color as unteachable, and he challenges educators to embrace and respect each student’s culture and to reimagine the classroom as a site where roles are reversed and students become the experts in their own learning. Putting forth his theory of Reality Pedagogy, Emdin provides practical tools to unleash the brilliance and eagerness of youth and educators alike—both of whom have been typecast and stymied by outdated modes of thinking about urban education. With this fresh and engaging new pedagogical vision, Emdin demonstrates the importance of creating a family structure and building communities within the classroom, using culturally relevant strategies like hip-hop music and call-and-response, and connecting the experiences of urban youth to indigenous populations globally. Merging real stories with theory, research, and practice, Emdin demonstrates how by implementing the “Seven Cs” of reality pedagogy in their own classrooms, urban youth of color benefit from truly transformative education.

In this volume, a diverse group of scholars debates crucial issues within and beyond our field, in an effort to help develop a multiplicity of analyses dissecting the challenges facing a strong epistemologically just theory and pedagogy of society. The volume explores why it has been historically difficult to produce a hegemonic critical theory and pedagogy of society. The volume also examines how social justice has been de-politicized from the cultural politics of everyday life through teacher-proof curricula that ‘forces’ a segregated uniformity; examines the multi-dimensional nature of language within relationships of power and discourses of reproduction, production, and resistance; unpacks how democracy has been challenged by an eugenic educational system; dissects the impact of corporate models of education on learning processes; examines how the use of zero tolerance policies in the U.S.’s public schools has led to the criminalization of non-violent acts within the nation’s public schools, thereby creating oppressed student populations; unveils how alternative proficiency assessment is not a good measure of student progress; and dissects the rationale behind standardized testing and its corresponding profits, suggesting other motives for high-stakes testing mandates.