Reconceptualizing the “Urban”
Reconceptualizing the “Urban”
Examining Race, Class, and Demographic Change in Cities and Their Public Schools
This chapter builds a case for a more nuanced understanding of urban schools and populations, discussing changes in cities and metropolitan regions over the last two decades and the significance of these changes for scholars of urban education. First, it outlines how recent shifts in cities complicate conceptions of the “urban” generally found in the research literature and media. Exploring these changes in relation to education policy, it discusses integration, neoliberalism, and educational reform in a post–civil rights era. The chapter then brings these more macro-level realities to bear on the shifts occurring at Morningside Elementary, the research site. Using the demographic changes at Morningside as an example of changing urban spaces, this chapter highlights the need for understandings of “the urban” to include a focus on gentrification and the contours and consequences of middle-class parent engagement in city schools and neighborhoods.
Keywords: urban education, demographic changes, city schools, integration, gentrification, post-civil rights era
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