Winner of the 2013 American Educational Studies Association's Critics Choice Award! When teacher education is located on a university campus, set apart from urban schools and communities, it is easy to overlook the realities and challenges communities face as they struggle toward social, economic, cultural, and racial justice. This book describes how teacher education can become a meaningful part of this work, by re-positioning programs directly into urban schools and communities. Situating their work within the theoretical framework of prioritizing community strengths, each set of authors provides a detailed and nuanced description of a teacher education program re-positioned within an urban school or community. Authors describe the process of developing such a relationship, how the university, school, and community became integrated partners in the program, and the impact on participants. As university-based teacher education has come under increased scrutiny for lack of "real world" relevance, this book showcases programs that have successfully navigated the travails of shifting their base directly into urban schools and communities, with evidence of positive outcomes for all involved.

Re-envisioning the role, impact, and goals of teacher education programs, this volume immerses readers in the inner workings of an innovative, field-based teacher preparation program in Chicago. Grounded in sociocultural theory, the book documents how teacher educators, school and community partners, and teacher candidates in the program confront challenges and facilitate their students’ learning, development, and achievement. By successfully and collaboratively developing instructional partnerships and embedding programs in urban schools and communities, the contributors demonstrate that it is possible to break the conventional mold of teacher education and better prepare the next generation of teachers.

Winner of the 2013 American Educational Studies Association's Critics Choice Award! When teacher education is located on a university campus, set apart from urban schools and communities, it is easy to overlook the realities and challenges communities face as they struggle toward social, economic, cultural, and racial justice. This book describes how teacher education can become a meaningful part of this work, by re-positioning programs directly into urban schools and communities. Situating their work within the theoretical framework of prioritizing community strengths, each set of authors provides a detailed and nuanced description of a teacher education program re-positioned within an urban school or community. Authors describe the process of developing such a relationship, how the university, school, and community became integrated partners in the program, and the impact on participants. As university-based teacher education has come under increased scrutiny for lack of "real world" relevance, this book showcases programs that have successfully navigated the travails of shifting their base directly into urban schools and communities, with evidence of positive outcomes for all involved.

This volume illuminates the most pressing challenges faced by urban schools, teachers, teacher candidates, and teacher training programs and offers a range of insights and possibilities for urban teacher education and teaching. Covering issues spanning the broadly theoretical to the urgently practical, it goes beyond the traditional discourses in teacher education to focus on diversity, social justice, democratic schooling, and community building. What emerges is an emphatic message of hope for those committed to the ongoing project of improving urban teacher education and working in urban settings. Contributors from Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean bring rich and divergent knowledges, perspectives, and cultural experiences to their discussion of the three central themes around which the book is organized: • the conceptual framing of key issues in urban schooling; • pre-service teacher preparation for urban transformation; and • culturally relevant pedagogy and advocacy in urban settings. This book is intended for all students, practitioners, and researchers involved in urban education. It is appropriate as a text for student teaching and field experience seminars, and for courses dealing with social issues, educational policy, curriculum development, and multicultural teacher education.

This volume informs the reader about new teachers in urban underserved schools and their development as teachers for social equity. The accounts of five novice teachers who grew up outside the communities in which they teach lead to chapters that contain advice for teacher educators, future and current teachers, and school leaders. These early career teachers learned much about bridging the cultural divide between themselves and their students, confronted and resolved big challenges that may immobilize some who set out to teach in these communities. They brought to their classrooms strong social justice orientations, including a moral imperative to make a difference in the world, an awareness of social and educational inequalities, and a strong sense of responsibility to positively influence the life trajectories of students in their charge. Their narratives offer insights on the dispositions and contexts that will help early career teachers survive and thrive and make a difference in their students’ lives.

Urban schools today face numerous challenges. Urban poverty; high mobility in and out of neighborhoods; schools with inadequate funding to cover the educational, social, and health needs of urban children and their families; and high teacher turnover are just a few of the vital issues that call for partnerships with communities, service agencies, and universities. Three years ago, the California State University, Sacramento Urban Teacher Education Center (UTEC) moved into an urban elementary school that serves children from two public housing projects. By establishing an ongoing presence at the school, this teacher education program has become positioned well to help enhance the school-community efforts to collaborate. This was seen especially during one year when the school had four rotating principals, and the community turned to UTEC for some stability. Examples include UTEC providing a "community liaison," providing tutors for the neighborhood tutoring/mentoring program held within the housing complex, parents asking UTEC to speak to administration on their behalf, and UTEC's creation of a Family Resource Center. This proposed presentation will discuss the process of gaining the trust of community members and describe examples of how this program has been able to enhance school-community connections.

For preservice candidates and novice teachers facing the challenges of feeling underprepared to teach in urban schools, this book offers a framework for conceptualizing, planning, and engaging in powerful teaching. Veteran teacher educator Etta Ruth Hollins builds on previous work to focus on transformative practices that emphasize the purpose and process of teaching. These practices are designed to improve academic performance, transform the social context in low-performing urban schools, and improve the quality of life in the local community. The learning experiences provided in this book guide readers through a sequence of experiences for learning about the local community that include an examination of history and demographics, community resources, local city and federal governance structures, and collaborating with other professionals. Focus Questions and a dedicated Application to Practice section in each chapter further guide learning and help make real-world connections. Designed to enable readers to bridge the gaps between theory and practice and the actual needs of urban students and their communities, this groundbreaking text helps prepare preservice candidates to make a successful transition and aids novice teachers in developing teaching practices that support academic excellence. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book attempts to present both theoretical and practical perspectives on school and university partnerships that focus on the preparation and retention of urban teachers. In particular, the book focuses on (a) theoretical and historical underpinnings of partnering to prepare urban teachers as social activists; (b) stories from the field, explored through the voices and actions of students, families, teacher educators, and preservice and in-service teachers; and (c) a critical analysis of this work. The research presented is situated in urban settings that mirror those across the United States and represents partnerships in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Wilmington, where school, city, and teacher education communities collaborate to prepare and keep teachers in hard-to-staff, high-needs schools. Case studies included in the text explore multiple perspectives on partnering to prepare urban teachers - including those of urban schoolchildren and their teachers, teacher educators and teachers becoming teacher educators, and parents. Combined, the chapters theoretically and practically detail the layers and conundrums, tribulations and triumphs, contexts and voices of the challenges facing urban teachers, teacher educators, community members, and administrators who work collaboratively to prepare and support teachers as social activists.

This book examines both the promises and complexities of racially and culturally diversifying todays teaching profession. Drawing from a 5-year study of the lives of 21 new teachers of color working in urban, hard-to-staff schools, this book documents the tensions these teachers experience between serving as role models and fulfilling district and state mandates.