Improving Urban Science Education: New Roles for Teachers, Students, and Researchers

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.

Table of Contents:
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