Improving Urban Science Education

New Roles for Teachers, Students, and Researchers

Contributions by Jennifer Beers, Lacie Butler, Cristobal Carambo, Sarah-Kate LaVan, Linda Loman, Sonya Martin, Catherine Milne, Stacy Olitsky, Tracey Otieno, Wolff-Michael Roth, Kathryn Scantlebury, Melissa Sterba Edited by Kenneth Tobin, Rowhea Elmesky, Gale Seiler

Publication date:

07 April 2005

Length of book:

376 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780742537040

Many would argue that the state of urban science education has been static for the past several decades and that there is little to learn from it. Rather than accepting this deficit perspective, Improving Urban Science Education strives to recognize and understand the successes that exist there by systematically documenting seven years of research into issues salient to teaching and learning in urban high school science classes. Grounded in the post structuralism of William Sewell—and brought to life through the experiences of different students, teachers, and school settings in Philadelphia—this book shows how teachers and students can work together to enact meaningful science education when social and cultural differences as well as inappropriate curricula often make the challenges seem insurmountable.

Chapters contain rich images of urban youth and each strives to offer insights into problems and suggestions for resolving them. Most significant, in spite of the challenges, the research offers hope and shows that fresh approaches to teaching and learning can lead students—some who have already been pronounced academic, even societal, failures—to becoming avid and deep learners of science.

Chapter 1 The Who, What, Where, and How of Our Urban Ethnographic Research
Chapter 2 Urban Science as a Culturally and Socially Adaptive Practice
Chapter 3 Painting the Landscape: Urban Schools and Urban Classrooms
Chapter 4 Organizational Mediation of Urban Science
Chapter 5 Playin on the Streets—Solidarity in the Classroom: Weak Cultural Boundaries and the Implications for Urban Science Education
Chapter 6 All My Life I Been Po': Oral Fluency as a Resource for Science Teaching and Learning
Chapter 7 Becoming an Urban Science Teacher: The First Three Years
Chapter 8 The Role of Cogenerative Dialogue in Learning to Teach and Transforming Learning Environments
Chapter 9 Learning Science and the Centrality of Student Participation
Chapter 10 Female Sexuality as Agency and Oppression in Urban Science Classrooms
Chapter 11 Meeting the Needs and Adapting to the Capital of a Queen Mother and an Ol' Head: Gender Equity in Urban High School Science
Chapter 12 Paperclips + Polymers —> Problems: Learning to Use Levels of Representation in a High School Chemistry Classroom
Chapter 13 An Autobiographical Approach to Becoming a Science Teacher in an Urban High School
Chapter 14 Beyond Either-Or: Reconsidering Resources in Terms of Structures
Chapter 15 My Cultural Awakening in the Classroom
Chapter 16 Social and Cultural Capital in Science Teaching: Relating Practice and Reflection
Chapter 17 Transforming the Future while Learning from the Past

This collection of 17 articles describes how science is integral to urban students, with contributions from academics, science teachers, and the students themselves.