Sex and the City: Educational Initiatives for 'Dangerous" and "Endangered" Girls in Late Victorian and Early Edwardian Manchester

The article explores the narratives surrounding Manchester School Board's removal in 1883 of children living in Manchester's brothels. It examines how gendered technologies of urban representation focusing on the prostitute impinged on the lives of children living in brothels and inflected the work of women reformers in the urban context more generally. The article traces a range of representations that underpinned the action of the Manchester School Board: the sexually active girl; Manchester mill girls' independence, lack of chastity and subversion of sexual difference; Manchester as a place of sexual danger; "imaginings" of the city in terms of the body; and epistemological links between the body and nineteenth century statistical method. It looks at the involvement of the Manchester Ladies' Association for the Care of Friendless Girls in the removal of the children from the brothels. The article concludes that while the work of women social reformers and activists in voluntary societies, and increasingly as members of poor law boards and school boards, was legitimated through maternalist rhetoric, it was also legitimated through reimaginings of the city in which middle-class women's increasing urban presence played an important role.     

Biography,Identity, and Inquiry: The making of teacher,teacher educator,and researcher

This is a self-study of my professional and cultural biography and identity, a history which directed me first toward the work of urban teaching and then into teacher education and research into comparative educational issues of racial and national identity. I use this inquiry to demonstrate how biography and identity influences the lived experience of teaching and the researcher's stance. I also examine areas where preservice urban teacher education programs must improve. My personal recommendations describe experiences that would have better prepared me for urban teaching. Suggestions include expanding coursework in the historical, political, and sociocultural influences on urban education and in designing culturally responsive curricula. I also recommend restructuring field experiences to offer richer classroom-based learning opportunities for preservice teachers and extending fieldwork into urban communities. Finally, I suggest ongoing inservice teacher education in learning-community models that respond to educators' context-specific teaching concerns.     

Friedrich Eberhard von Rochow's Education of_the Children in Rural Communities and its Impact on Urban Educational Reforms in the Eighteenth Century*

Friedrich Eberhard von Rochow (1734-1805) - squire, educational reformer, writer of textbooks and agricultural innovator - tried in the true spirit of Enlightenment to impart the concept of reason to the people, especially countryfolk. In Rochow's view, the rural population's situation had to be improved materially as well as intellectually in order to alleviate the misery of wide sections of the population and thus to achieve an improvement of public welfare. His Enlightenment interest was primarily aimed at pedagogical reforms in order to teach children in the rural communities "how to think" and - influenced through a moral-philosophical thinking at that time - to lay the foundations for moral judgement in their minds. The article deals with the question of what influence Rochow's pedagogical thoughts and school reforms had on other school projects of the Enlightenment. Taking the development of the School of Industry (1788-1811) in Hamburg as an example, I shall take a closer look at the transfer to urban areas of the educational ideas that originally related to the rural space. The development of the School of Industry highlighted the fact that Rochow's pedagogical thoughts could not simply be transferred to the urban space, even though the problem of poverty and a new work ethic had initiated the reform projects in both areas. The different life worlds of city and countryside and, especially, the specific situation and living conditions of the urban underclasses had to be considered for the institutional, organisational and curricular formation of the school project in the city.     

A teacher's use of digital video with urban middle school students: Expanding definitions of representational literacy

Abstract

The role of educational technology as media is rapidly expanding. When placed directly into the hands of students, digital video, in particular, has the potential to transform schooling. In this case study, members of the Naptown Prodigy, an after school club, produced music videos and iMovies of streetball performances. The club's advisor, an urban middle school English teacher, participated in the PT3 Vanguard program, a university—public school staff development collaboration. The teacher's access to technology through the Vanguard program enabled her students to use digital video as both a construction and expression medium. This project provides a unique and promising example of the ways in which teachers can use digital video to foster representational literacy among inner‐city youth.     

Sexing the Subject: Teachers,pedagogies and sex education

This article analyses the relationship between sexual biography and pedagogic practice. It is based on life history interviews with sex education practitioners (teachers and a school nurse) that aimed to explore elements of these individuals' sexual biographies, their experiences of learning about sex and their pedagogic practice. The article considers why the sexuality of sex educators may be important, how this manifests itself in school and, finally, some of the implications for policy and practice.     

No Poor Child Left Unrecruited: How NCLB Codifies and Perpetuates Urban School Militarism

A critical theoretical framework is used to analyze the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal legislation and its role in codifying and perpetuating educational practices and policies that contribute to growing campus militarism in urban schools serving low-income African American and Latino students. The author argues that NCLB § 9528 is part of a broader strategy by the Pentagon to recruit low-income urban youth for the military. The article examines how NCLB's focus on standardized tests and punitive sanctions reinforces urban schools' already narrow curriculum, leading to the diminished capacity of students to question militarism and challenge social oppression.     

12 Equity,adequacy and educational need: the courts and urban school finance

Nearly two decades following the landmark Rodriguez decision in 1973, plaintiffs arguing on behalf of poor urban school districts have found an opening for financial redress. The supreme courts in several states, including New Jersey, Texas and Kentucky, have ruled in the last couple of years that all students are entitled to a ‘minimally adequate’ education. In Abbott v. Burke, in particular, the New Jersey court made reference to the special needs of inner‐city students. In this chapter the authors trace the history of court cases related to urban school finance and analyse both the legal and conceptual basis for recent decisions that may benefit large‐city districts.     

Using Data and the Human Touch: Evaluating the NYC Inter-Agency Campaign to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism

ABSTRACT

Following a 2008 report that documented the extent of chronic absenteeism in New York City's schools, the city organized an interagency task force to develop and implement a citywide effort to reduce chronic absenteeism. Given the size of the city school system and the scope of chronic absenteeism, the effort became the nation's most comprehensive campaign against absenteeism. Analyses of the campaign's pilot in 100 schools, with over 80,000 students, found that its efforts, particularly the Success Mentors program, significantly improved students' attendance rates and reduced chronic absenteeism, particularly for students from a high-poverty background.     

Project Proficiency: Assessing the Independent Effects of High School Reform in an Urban District

ABSTRACT.

The authors sought to determine if an urban school district's effort to fundamentally change teaching, assessment, and intervention practices increased student achievement and decreased achievement variation among classrooms in 11 high schools. They examined Grade 11 mathematics achievement data from the 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 Kentucky Core Content Test. The sample consisted of 2,451 students in 11 high schools that implemented an initiative called Project Proficiency. The study used hierarchical linear modeling to determine if changes in instructional practices yielded academic gains, while controlling for individual and school socioeconomic status (SES) and prior student achievement. The analysis revealed that Project Proficiency had a significant impact on state mathematics achievement and reduced classroom variation by 55% in the final model, as opposed to 16% in the control group. Results also indicated that a school's SES had a greater influence on student achievement than an individual student's SES.     

Introducing Noddings and the Symposium

Abstract

‘Introducing Noddings and the Symposium’ is an overview in three parts following an opening comment The three are these: Noddings’s biography highlighting personal background and professional accomplishments; papers overview pointing to key ideas and themes as well as philosophical, literary and metaphorical inspiration; and response comments that take up ideas from the symposium papers and Noddings’s text in brief reconsideration. These ideas are connection of care theory to Noddings’s happiness, recognition of an ethics in doing philosophy, conceptions of needs and wants, and promotion of critical thinking especially in schools.     

The non-formal arts learning sector,youth provision,and paradox in the learning city

ABSTRACT

The ‘learning city’ contains a range of non-formal learning economies. In recent years researchers have focused on, what has been termed, the non-formal arts learning sector, to document best practices, the emergence of new literacies and/or cultural practices, and to highlight interventions that support otherwise marginalised and underserved communities. Yet, for all of this attention, the non-formal learning sector has remained an opaque object, defined by hazy boundaries, diverse programme structures, and a presence in cities that is difficult to grasp. In this paper we develop an account of the non-formal arts learning sector for socially disadvantaged youth by treating it as a ‘socio-technical assemblage’ of the learning city. We draw on data from the Youthsites research project and examine the history, priorities, and tensions in the sector between 1995 and 2015, a period when the youth arts sector has become a significant feature of urban space. We trace the emergence of the sector in three global cities, analyse a series of paradoxes linked to income and property, the labelling of youth, and organisation aims, and show how these paradoxes shape the sector’s broader relationship with the state, labour and consumer markets, and related institutions that allocate support for young people.     

Toward improved knowledge and policy on urban education

The essays in this volume mark a watershed in the study of urban public education in the United States. By virtue of their intellectual breadth and substantive concern for the welfare of city schools and students, these papers forecast an integration of political and organizational analysis of education in the big cities ‐connecting the structures and processes of policy‐making with the structures and processes that comprise the everyday lives of school administrators, teachers and students. These essays derive their theoretical and practical import from their ultimate focus on how city schools work and on the experiences that their students have in schools and classrooms. This focus on consequences for schooling as it is experienced in the city school marks a significant departure for students of urban school politics and policy in the US.     

Parental Choice and the Decision to Decharter an Urban,Black, Middle School

ABSTRACT

This article unpacks the decision to decharter a successful urban middle school serving African American students, especially focusing on parental choice in a school caught between two urban reform initiatives: charter schooling and state takeovers of urban districts. Originally chartered by a university, DeCharter became a “school of choice” in an urban district. Though inclusion of all stakeholders motivated charter school decision-making, the decision to decharter excluded them. Working out the intricacies of “choice” and the influences of the policies on stakeholders' interpretations of dechartering illustrates the complexities of parental choice in urban districts and the unintended effects of reform initiatives.     

Presidential canvass,log‐cabin style

In painting and music it is common for one artist to build upon the work of another. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is a composite of variations on Schiller's Ode To Joy, and Picasso readily admitted that he drew heavily from the work of Velasquez in some of his early paintings. The practice of thematic variation is, however, less frequent in works of dramatic literature. Seldom does one writer draw upon the work of another in an obvious manner, use it to reinforce his own thesis, and have his borrowing remain undetected. Yet this is precisely what playwright Arthur Kopit has done in The Day The Whores Came Out To Play Tennis. Although Kopit's thematic variations may not be obvious in the work as produced, they are, however, quite clear if the play is read. The only possible explanation for lack of comment on what is obvious is that very little has been written about any of Kopit's work. Nevertheless, in The Day The Whores Came Out To Play Tennis, Kopit draws extensively from material contained in Anton Chekhov's play, The Cherry Orchard.     

The search for the complicit native: Epistemic violence,historical amnesia,and the anthropologist as ideologue of empire

This essay analyzes a number of issues surrounding the Menchu/Stoll dispute. In locating Stoll's criticism of Rigoberta within a larger referential arena that includes an attack on the North American academic left and an unbridled anti-Marxism, the authors attempt to reveal how Stoll's ideological agenda is functionally compatible with the larger political agenda of the New Right. The authors also attempt to reveal Stoll's distortions of Guatemalan guerrilla history as well as problems with his analysis and collection of the data.     

Form IV Cambridge School Certificate,Pupils' Aspirations in Zimbabwe

This article is based on two major studies. One study was carried out in 1985 and the other in 1987. The discussion examines Form IV Cambridge School Certificate pupils' aspirations in Zimbabwe with special reference to the post‐independence period. Among the main factors said to determine pupils' aspirations, highlighted in the study include: the class structures of scoiety, parents' occupations, gender, the urban‐rural dichotomy and the type of schools attended.

Pupils' aspirations for a developing country such as Zimbabwe have implications for the country's education policies. These implications are in areas such as the expansion of educational provisions, universal primary education, material provision, educational costs, manpower supply and demand and entry into the University.

As far as cost implications are concerned, there is debate in Zimbabwe as to whether the country can afford free and compulsory primary education given limited resources. At the same time limited resources have affected the quality of education. This article attempts to give suggestions as to what education policy makers could do to improve upon the situation.     

Classroom Learning Environment of City and Kibbutz Biology Classrooms in Israel

Summaries

English

The Learning Environment Inventory (LEI), adapted to conditions in Israeli schools and factor analysed on an Israeli sample, was administered to 572 students in 10th‐grade biology classes. Fourteen classes were in urban schools, six in Kibbutz district schools. All classes used the same BSCS (yellow version) curriculum. Seven out of the nine scales of the LEI Israeli version yielded significantly different scores for urban and Kibbutz samples indicating a more positive social learning climate in the Kibbutz than in the city. Differences were most marked on scales assessing cohesiveness, favouritism and cliquishness. Results were interpreted to indicate that social climate in classrooms is influenced by school‐wide policies regarding relationships in school, and not only by within‐class factors such as curriculum and teaching method.