A Tale of Three Cities: Defining Urban Schools Within the Context of Varied Geographic Areas

Connie L. Schaffer, Meg White, Corine M. Brown

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

26 Scopus citations

Abstract

What constitutes an urban school? This question has confounded social researchers and educators who often limit definitions to population data. H. Richard Milner suggested a framework for defining urban schools that includes population data as well as the racial and social context of schools. This article applied Milner’s model to school districts in New York, Nebraska, and New Mexico which exemplified Milner’s categories of urban schools: urban intensive, urban emergent, and urban characteristic. Application of the framework to the districts presents a model for teacher educators to deliver two important components of preservice preparation. First, the model can assist preservice teachers to challenge their existing perceptions of urban schools. Second, establishing a framework provides teacher educators the opportunity to guide preservice teachers to view urban schools through a Critical Race Theory lens. Through this lens, preservice teachers can begin to realize the impact of systemic racism within education.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)507-523
Number of pages17
JournalEducation and Urban Society
Volume50
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1 2018

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Education
  • Urban Studies

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A Tale of Three Cities: Defining Urban Schools Within the Context of Varied Geographic Areas'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this