Urban schools exist within everyday parlance as an ongoing quandary within American public schools. However, historical, social, cultural, and discursive meanings intersect and compose urban school contexts (re)producing what is known and understandable. Early–career teachers work within these intersections. How they work within and think about these intersections influence their teaching and classroom pedagogical practices. In other words, urban school discourses influence and impact curriculum, which is navigated and mediated by early–career teachers. Through Critical Race Theory and poststructural lenses, this research interrogates normative assumptions and interpretations undergirding these historical (re)productions which often constitute the families and students within these school communities. I conducted this study through individual interviews and a focus group session with six teachers who graduated from a graduate–level, university–based Urban Teacher Residency teacher preparation program and who have worked completed between three to six years as teachers in urban school settings. By focusing on the lived experiences of these early–career teachers, this study contributes to teacher education programs and to in–service induction teaching. These early–career teachers navigate district– and school–level discourses, both professionally in how they conduct their classrooms and personally in how they process their emotional lives. They continuously seek ways in which to maintain their vision for social justice and equity within urban school settings and to maintain an ethic of care for their students. Therefore, the analysis includes my reading and interpretation of teacher and student discourses within these conversations. Throughout these interpretations, I write through, integrate, and interrogate my own experiences and positionalities as an African–American woman, former student, and educator in urban school contexts. Finally, I construct a counter–story in which the teachers grapple with and support an ethic of care for their students. Counter–stories center the voices and experiences of teachers of color as they attend to systemic school inequalities. This research provides a platform for examining and revising the oft–repeated stories of urban schools so that they might become vehicles for transforming structural and cultural norms that have subordinated access and equity for all students, and especially in the context of urban schools, students of color.

Broader social issues that affect students’ lives manifest in the classroom and the current neo-liberal reform structures in education (e.g., the accountability movement combined with punitive discipline measures and structural classism/racism) fail to acknowledge the impact of these issues on student identity within school and community. While this era of standardized testing has brought about anti-democratic realities in schools of all sorts, it is also the case that schools that pass tests often enjoy a more liberatory climate while schools struggling to meet testing requirements are more likely to possess oppressive qualities. Not coincidentally, the more oppressive schools are often populated by poor kids, kids of color, and very often in urban schools, poor kids of color. Deficit thinking runs rampant in urban schools and marginalized communities – student experiences perpetuate oppressive social hierarchies and students are pushed to think that they can’t, won’t, and aren’t capable. Critical service learning, and more specifically photovoice as a form of critical service learning, has promise to provide a different kind of educational experience. This project is an exploratory qualitative study using photovoice, photo elicitation, and critical thematic analysis to determine what narratives students construct while participating in photovoice as a form of critical service learning. This study posits a way to move from deficits to possibilities by providing a space for traditionally marginalized youth to legitimize their sense of place, identity, and connection to their community while empowering them to be advocates for social change. Students served as action researchers, constructing counter narratives through an adaptation of photovoice documentation, addressing social inequities by highlighting strengths and assets in their own schools and community. In addition to using photovoice as a methodology, this study also addressed how photovoice as critical service learning pedagogy can serve to create discursive spaces for those counter-narratives to circulate and to be heard. This project addressed the need for a critical service learning approach in education that empowers students to become agents of change, using their own stories and cultural/social capital to disrupt deficit perspectives while promoting possibility perspectives – moving us closer to a more democratic public education.

Diverse populations of students in public schools have led to differences in how the phrase parental involvement is understood. The problem at one local elementary preparatory school in urban Southern California was this varied understanding on what parental involvement entailed, specifically in school activities. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of parents, teachers, and administrators regarding parental involvement and the influence of parental involvement on student academic progress. Bandura's theory of self-efficacy and Lee and Bowen's theory of social and cultural capital provided lenses into parental involvement and students' academic progress. A qualitative case study design was used with a purposeful sample of 5 parents, 8 teachers, and 3 administrators of 4th and 5th grade students at this preparatory elementary school. Individual interviews were transcribed and then subjected to constant comparative analysis until theoretical saturation occurred. Interpretations were then member-checked to ensure their credibility. Findings indicated all participants believed parental involvement was essential for students' academic progress, but differed in their views of the term itself. Parents believed involvement was ensuring homework completion, teachers believed parental involvement should be parent's engagement in every aspect of their child's life, and administrators believed parents were involved when they participated in school-wide committees. This project study is significant because the findings can be used by the local site leadership team to create workshops for parents, teachers, and administrators to help develop a common understanding of parental involvement and the influence parental involvement can have on student academic progress.

In the city selected for this study, only 29% of inner-city students scored proficiently on standardized tests, whereas 71% of their peers at nearby suburban and affluent schools achieved the proficiency level. To address the gap, the local district implemented ability grouping in one charter school. The purpose of this ex post facto quasi-experimental study was to examine the effect of ability grouping among inner-city students in mathematics as an instructional intervention for improving student achievement. Ability grouping theory as an instructional strategy was used as the theoretical framework for this study. The criterion measure of mathematics improvement was provided by the test results from the Northwest Evaluation Association's Measure of Academic Progress (NWEA-MAP), a computer-adaptive assessment of mathematics. Using population data for 2012-2014 inner-city 8th graders who took the pretest and posttest NWEA-MAP (N = 234), two 1-way analyses of variances were used to test for mean differences in the NWEA-MAP improvement scores between ability-grouped (n = 115) and non-ability-grouped (n = 115) students, then specifically between students who were grouped as high ability (n = 55) and low ability (n = 55). The ability-grouped students had significantly higher improvement scores than did the nongrouped students. For those students who were ability grouped, no statistically significant difference existed in improvement between the high and low ability groups. A position paper was developed recommending student grouping to improve academic performance of inner-city school students. Positive social change will occur as the achievement gap is closed for students who attend inner-city schools.

This study investigated the educational practices and learning outcomes in rural and urban lower secondary school science classrooms of Kalimantan Selatan, Indonesia. Guided by six research questions, this study focused on curriculum implementation and its association with the existing working and learning environment, learning process and learning outcomes. The investigations were conducted in two stages and used two research methods. The classroom learning environment and school level environment were investigated at the first stage using the questionnaire survey as a research method. The questionnaires were developed and validated with a sample of 1188 Year 9 students and their teachers in 16 schools. Validation of the questionnaire confirmed that the Indonesian version of the modified WMIC is a valid and reliable instrument to measure the classroom learning environment in the Indonesian educational context. The results regarding the status of the classroom learning environment are summarised in four assertions. First, students tended to prefer a more favourable classroom learning environment than the one they actually experienced. Second, female students generally held slightly more positive perceptions of both actual and preferred learning environments. Third, students in rural schools experienced a less positive learning environment than did their counterparts in urban areas. Fourth, teachers’ perceptions were more favourable than their students on both the actual and preferred learning environment for all seven scales, except on Task Orientation in which their perceptions were matched. This study also confirmed that the Indonesian version of SLEQ, administered to relatively small number of respondents, has gained in merit as a good instrument. / Each scale of the Indonesian SLEQ has acceptable internal consistency reliability and was able to differentiate between the perceptions of teachers in different schools. Further analysis indicated differences between perceptions of school environments of biology and physics teachers and of rural and urban school teachers, particularly on Resources Adequacy. This study also indicated the differences between teachers’ views of the actual and preferred school environments in which the differences are not only statistically but also practically significant. It is suggested that research for improving school environments, by matching teachers’ actual and preferred perceptions, is noteworthy and more research needs to be conducted. The second stage of this study explored the existing science curriculum documents, teachers’ perceptions of the science curriculum, the implementation of science curriculum in the classrooms, and the students’ outcomes in school science. In lower secondary school, science is compulsory for all students of all Year levels, and is aimed to introduce the students to the basic concepts of scientific knowledge and to emphasize the use of tools and equipment during laboratory observations. Science in the lower secondary school consists of physics and biology subjects that were taught separately, but were given the same amount of classroom periods per week. The content was organized into themes or topics. Despite the content to be taught, the development of students’ process skills and students’ attitudes towards science and the environment were also emphasized. / The suggested teaching approaches included the conceptual approach, the problem-solving approach, the inductive-deductive approach and the environmental approach, whereas the suggested teaching methods in science classroom are the experimental method, the demonstration method, the discussion method, the excursion method and the lecturing method. The evaluation and assessment sections of the curriculum documents expected science teachers to systematically and continuously assess the students. Three techniques were suggested to conduct evaluation in the science classroom, which included paper and pencil tests, verbal evaluations, and practical tests. Science teachers and superintendents possessed different perceptions of the science curriculum as expressed in their preferences towards curriculum metaphors. The metaphor ‘Curriculum as Content or as Subject Matter’ was a view perceived by three teachers. ‘Curriculum as intended learning outcome’ was the second metaphor preferred by two teachers, who hold this view for different reasons. In contrast, two superintendents expressed their most preference on the metaphors ‘Curriculum as discrete task and concepts’ and ‘Curriculum as programme planned activity’, respectively. Investigation of the implementation of the science curriculum in the classrooms confirmed that science-teaching practices in urban lower secondary schools was in agreement with those suggested in the curriculum documents. / Science teachers in urban schools tended to use a variety of teaching methods, employed good questioning techniques, provided clear explanations and had high outcomes expectation, and maintained effective classroom management. On the other hand, to some extend science teaching practice in the rural lower secondary schools was not as expected in the curriculum document. Mostly, teachers in rural schools tended to use traditional chalk-and-talk teaching methods, employed a limited questioning techniques, had relatively unclear outcomes expectation, and performed less effective classroom management skills. With regard to students’ outcomes, this study showed less favourable results. Students’ attitudinal outcomes, which were measured by the Indonesian version of adapted TOSRA, were not maximised, and students’ cognitive outcomes are disappointing. The mean scores on the national wide examination, which is 5.46 out of possible maximum score of 10.00, indicated the poor performance of students in learning School Science. No statistically significantly differences were found on attitudinal outcomes between rural and urban and between male and female students’ perceptions. However, the study identified that students’ cognitive scores were statistically significantly different between rural and urban schools. Students in urban schools scored higher in the examination than did their counterparts in rural schools. The study found association between students’ outcomes and the status of classroom learning environments. Both simple analysis and multiple regression analysis procedures showed that all scales of the Indonesian WMIC were statistically significantly associated with two scales of the Indonesian adapted TOSRA and students’ cognitive scores.

The intent of this study was to explore the perceptions of Black middle and upper class preservice teachers as they relate to teaching and learning in high poverty urban schools. Participants included 11 senior early childhood education preservice teachers at a historically Black college in the southeast region of the United States. The study was conducted using qualitative inquiry. Background questionnaires, individual interviews, and a group interview served as the data sources. While there is an extensive body of knowledge focused on the increasing number of White preservice teachers who lack experience with students in diverse communities, there are limited studies pertaining to the perceptions of Black middle and upper class preservice teachers who may lack experience with students in high poverty urban schools. In the Black community, color and social class have been inexorably linked for generations. Social class is conceivably one of the most significant sources of inequality in schools and was one of the first factors, after intelligence, researched by scholars as a source of difference in achievement. The study answered the following questions: (1) What are the perceptions of Black middle and upper class preservice teachers regarding teaching and learning in high poverty urban schools? (2) To what extent do Black middle and upper class preservice teachers believe they can be successful teachers in high poverty urban schools? The data demonstrated that Black middle and upper class preservice teachers (a) prefer to teach in communities similar to their own school experiences; (b) believe students from high poverty urban schools can achieve at the same level as students in middle and upper class schools, but are uncertain of the value their informal knowledge brings to the classroom; (c) recognize effective teaching strategies and best practices in classroom instruction; and (d) have mixed feelings regarding their ability to connect with students and parents in high poverty urban schools. Implications from the study include expanding the scope of field experiences for Black middle and upper class preservice teachers in high poverty urban schools and recognizing Black middle and upper class preservice teachers in teacher education research.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed Feb. 1, 2010). Additional advisors: Martha S. Barber, Lois M. Christensen, Dave Dagley, Tondra Loder-Jackson, Boyd Rogan. Includes bibliographical references (p. 100-110).

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of West Florida, 2009. / Submitted to the Dept. of Professional and Community Leadership. Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 149 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Not available / text

This study considered the important role that principal leadership plays in the implementation of changes that are designed to close achievement gaps among student groups. A qualitative research approach and protocol was followed, and a multiple case study methodological approach was utilized. The data gathered consisted of interviews of three principals, three instructional coordinators, and three teacher leaders. A review of documents, artifacts, observations, field notes, and member check data were used to triangulate data. The data analysis applied the McRel Balanced Leadership conceptual framework and used three research questions to organize and guide the discussion and findings. These research questions are: (1) How did the principal implement research-based leadership responsibilities that led to the pursuit of high academic achievement for all students? (2) How did the principals implement a school-wide improvement framework that has resulted in sustained academic achievement growth for all students? (3) How did the principal implement the identified strategies that ensured high academic achievement among all student populations? Over the course of five months, data were gathered through individual interviews, observations, analysis of documents, and other artifacts. Several themes emerged as a result of data analysis. These included: (a) communicated ideals and beliefs, (b) challenged status quo, (c) culture of collaboration, (d) focus on learning, (e) data driven, (f) research based learning, (g) and curriculum alignment. The findings in the study suggest that the principals were instrumental in creating the conditions that helped the teachers build upon their collective capacity to support student success. / text