Elementary education in the inner city.

This column presents and summarizes recents resources that discuss some problems and solutions related to elementary education in inner-city urban areas.

Books and Paper Presentations

CENTRAL PARK EAST AND ITS GRADUATES: "Learning by Heart." The Series on School Reform. David Bensman, 2000. 169 pp. (Available from: Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027.) This book describes New York City's Central Park East (CPE) Elementary School, which provides inner-city children with the highest quality educators and pedagogy and is considered one of the most academically enriching schools in the United States. The book gives voice to young adults who emerged from poverty to succeed as a result of powerful experiences within CPE. Chapter I outlines graduates' achievements. Chapter 2 examines the academic pathways to success constructed by students and teachers. Chapter 3 describes how students used caring relationships to create pathways to emotional and social growth. Chapter 4 explains how CPE bridged racial and cultural divides. Chapter 5 discusses parental support. Chapter 6 describes the students' triumphs, setbacks, hopes, and dreams. Chapter 7 considers CPE's significance within contemporary school improvement.

AN EXAMINATION OF TEACHERS' FLOW EXPERIENCES, EFFICACY, AND INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP IN LARGE INNER-CITY AND URBAN SCHOOL DISTRICTS. Larry E. Frase, 1998. 31 pp. (Available from ERIC at www.eric.ed.gov/; go to "Search on Database," select ERIC #, and enter ED421599.) A study sought to determine linkages between a number of variables and the frequency and quality of teacher flow experiences. "Flow" is the word used to describe teachers' feelings when they experience control of their actions. The quantitative portion of the study included 201 teachers from inner-city schools; in the qualitative portion, participants were 16 teachers in large urban, suburban, or inner-city districts. A number of linkages between organizational practices, principal practices, and teacher practices and flow were identified from the analyses. Principals' frequent classroom visits predicted organizational efficacy, the perceived efficacy of others, and teacher value of teacher evaluation, and were strongly related to flow experiences. Also related to flow experiences were teacher self-efficacy, perceived self-efficacy of others, and organization efficacy. Other linkages related to flow are described.

HUMANIZING AN INHUMANE URBAN ENVIRONMENT: Children's Artwork and Stories. Abigail McNamee & Edith DeChiara, 1997. 23 pp. (Available from ERIC at www.eric.ed.gov/; go to "Search on Database," select ERIC #, and enter ED434177.) The authors describe how they encouraged urban elementary school students to humanize their environments through artwork and stories. Participants were 46 students in grades 2 through 6 from an inner-city neighborhood characterized by violence and crime. The children came to a neighborhood center once a week for an enrichment and tutoring program, and were asked to draw a picture of what their neighborhood was like and another picture of what they would like it to be. A week later, the children were guided through telling an original story about their drawings. The children were certainly aware of violence in their environments, and their voices, expressed in artwork and re-created in stories, became part of a process that might produce energy for other experiences that are part of an enriching school day. Expressed in this way, children's ideas about their environment can educate the educator and provide evidence that children are "meaningmakers" in their own worlds.

Journal Articles

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF CULTURAL IDENTITY AND CULTURE-BASED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS FOR URBAN AMERICAN INDIAN STUDENTS. Kristin M. Powers. Urban Education, Vol. 41, No. 1 (January 2006): 20-49. Data collected from 240 urban American Indian students were used to examine the impact of culture-based practices in education on these students' educational outcomes. The results found that culture-based programs had a largely indirect effect on students' educational outcomes via universal constructs, such as positive school climate and parental involvement in school. Furthermore, cultural programming appeared to have greater influence on those urban American Indian students who most strongly identified with their American Indian culture.

IN SEARCH OF CULTURAL THEMES AND THEIR EXPRESSIONS IN THE DYNAMICS OF CLASSROOM LIFE. A. Wade Boykin, Kenneth M. Tyler, & Oronde Miller. Urban Education, Vol. 40, No. 5 (September 2005): 521-549. This qualitative study investigated the existence of cultural themes in classrooms serving low-income African American students. A classification scheme that categorized classroom dynamics evidencing cultural themes was used to record teachers' and students' behaviors. Classroom observations were specified to either a mainstream or Afrocultural ethos. Results support the home-school cultural misalignment argument. There were more observations of mainstream classroom behaviors than Afrocultural ones. Mainstream cultural themes emerged from teacher-initiated behaviors, whereas Afrocultural themes were most often recorded as student-initiated behaviors.

WESLEY ELEMENTARY: A Beacon of Hope for At-Risk Students. Sharolyn Pollard-Durodola. Education and Urban Society, Vol. 36, No. 1 (November 2003): 94-117. This article describes the characteristics of one successful inner-city elementary school. Teachers, the former principal, and an education consultant indicated that nine factors had a significant impact on the school's success, including: strong instructional leadership by the principal and teacher experts, a safe and structured school environment, high expectations for teachers and students, and a common vision.

TWO PRESERVICE TEACHERS' GROWTH IN SELF-EFFICACY WHILE TEACHING IN AN INNER-CITY SCHOOL. Stephen P. Rushton. Urban Review, Vol. 35, No. 3 (September 2003): 167-189. Data from interviews, written reflections, and group discussions with two African American preservice teachers indicated that their self-efficacy increased as they interacted with mentoring teachers and students and learned to cope with doubts about their abilities. As they addressed their conflicts, the teachers changed how they thought about teaching in the inner city and broadened their knowledge.

"DRAG ME TO THE ASYLUM": Disguising and Asserting Identities in an Urban School. Jennifer McCormick, Urban Review, Vol. 35, No. 2 (June 2003): 111-128. Attempts to create a safe environment at many inner-city high schools tend to separate students, who are largely black, working class, and poor, into criminal and noncriminal categories, creating a labeling system that denies complex individuality. This article demonstrates how teens reaffirmed and subverted the labels by disguising themselves and creating personas through the use of clothing, graffiti, and poetry. The article then analyzes how poetry becomes a means to explore individual interests and fears.

CULTURAL ASSIMILATION: A Narrative Case Study of Student-Teaching in an Inner-City School. Stephen P. Rushton, Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 17, No. 2 (February 2001): 147-160. This article examines a white preservice teacher's experiences in an inner-city school. Analysis of interviews, written reflections, and group discussions describes a journey from initial culture shock, eliciting both emotional and cognitive dissonance, to cultural assimilation as the teacher adapted to concerns about her students, worries about working with her mentoring teacher, and doubts about her own abilities.

PEER MEDIATION IN AN INNER-CITY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. David W. Johnson & Roger Johnson, Urban Education, Vol. 36, No. 2 (March 2001): 165-178. An intervention tested the effectiveness of peer mediation in an inner-city elementary school. Trained students mediated 206 conflicts, most of which were relationship problems involving physical and verbal aggression. Before mediation, students' conflict strategies included physical force and verbal intimidation. Mediation most commonly resulted in an agreement among students to avoid each other in the future, followed by apologizing and forgiving each other.

STUDENT TEACHER EFFICACY IN INNER-CITY SCHOOLS. Stephen P. Rushton, Urban Review, Vol. 32, No. 4 (December 2000): 365-383. A study examined student teachers' conflict resolution and growth toward efficacy while interning in inner-city schools. Interviews, written reflections, and group discussions indicated a sense of culture shock upon entering schools. Students were concerned about children's home lives, relationships with cooperating teachers and students, and their own teaching abilities. Growth in self-efficacy began as interns attempted to manage problems and take risks.

"SURVIVAL": A White Teacher's Conception of Drama With Inner-City Hispanic Youth. Johnny Saldana, Youth Theatre Journal, Vol. 11 (1997): 25-46. This article profiles how and why a white, upper-middle-class teacher who was trained in aspects of play production and theater education changed her conception of educational drama as she worked in a magnet school with impoverished, inner-city Hispanic youth. The article discusses culture shock, cross-cultural functioning, and survival in terms of ethos, gang subculture, language, and staff authority.

NEXT STEPS IN INNER-CITY EDUCATION. Focusing on Resilience Development and Learning Success. Margaret C. Wang, Education and Urban Society, Vol. 29, No. 3 (May 1997): 255-276. This article discusses the work of the National Center on Education in the Inner City and the next-step efforts to significantly improve the capacity for education in urban America. Four topics are addressed: fostering educational resilience, implementing practices responsive to student diversity and resilience development, forging school connections with family and community, and building on existing structures for education improvement.

Web Resources

Institute for Urban and Minority Education

http://iume.tc.columbia.edu/

The Institute conducts research and evaluations, provides information services, and assists schools, organizations, and parents in program development, professional development, and parent education.

ERIC Digests archived by the Institute for Urban and Minority Education:

* New Approaches to Truancy Prevention in Urban Schools. Charles Walls, 2003.

http://iume.tc.columbia.edu/eric_archive/digest/186.pdf

* Bridging Identities Among Ethnic Minority Youth in Schools. Christine J. Yeh & Christopher Drost, 2002.

http://iume.tc.columbia.edu/eric_archive/digest/173.pdf

* The Role of Teachers in UrbanSchool Reform. Laura Desimone, 2000.

http://iume.tc.columbia.edu/eric_archive/digest/154.pdf

Inner-City Teaching Corps

http://ictc-chicago, org/

The mission of the Inner-City Teaching Corps is to transform education in underserved communities and to empower children in urban schools through innovative education opportunities.

Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform

www.crosscity.org/

The Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform is a national network of school reformers who support efforts to create high-quality schools that ensure educational success for all urban young people.

The Early Childhood and Parenting (ECAP) Collaborative contributed this column. Further information on ECAP projects is available from ECAP, Children's Research Center, University of Illinois, 51 Gerty Drive, Champaign, IL 61820-7469; phone: [phone] or 217-333-1386; E-mail: [e-mail]; URL: http://ecap.crc.uiuc.edu/.